Szoka detoxifies cancer drugs

November 7, 2006 Frank Szoka, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF and member of the Graduate Group in Bioengineering, has helped may a breakthrough that may detoxify cancer drugs. Drugs to treat cancer drugs are often highly toxic when delivered straight, but a joint effort between faculty at UCSF and UC Berkeley has shown that "wrapping" them inside larger molecules can lessen the side effects as well as make them more effective. In recent experiments the cancer drug doxorubicin was enveloped in a large polymer, and produced a 100 percent cure in mice with induced colon cancer, while all mice treated with the drug doxorubicin only died. The new polymer encapsulation proved to be as effective as doxorubicin encapsulated in fat bubbles, which is now used to treat several types of cancer in humans. Szoka collaborated with Jean Fréchet, professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at UC Berkeley and a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Their findins were published last week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read the full story at the UC Berkeley News Center .