The current chemotherapy has some critical limitations such as poor delivery efficiency, systemic toxicity, and the lack of pharmacokinetic monitoring. To solve this problems, Scientist in China proposed a drug delivery strategy based on fiber-optic for synergistic cancer photothermal-chemotherapy. The optic probe can deliver the drug with high efficiency without systemic toxicity, and can supervise the dynamical drug release and in-situ temperature. The proposed strategy provides a revolutionized on-demand drug delivery platform.

A team from Osaka University has developed a large-scale drug screening technique that can track target molecule behavior within cells. The researchers verified their technique by testing the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a known target for cancer drugs. Their drug screening resulted in the identification of the known drugs, as well as others that were not previously known to affect EGFR. This new method can potentially help develop new drugs and repurpose existing drugs.

Cell division is a pivotal moment in the life cycle of a cell: when things go wrong, the cell typically triggers growth arrest or its own self-destruction. Researchers in Austria and Italy have now discovered a previously unknown process that initiates cancer cell death in two distinct ways. This newly uncovered mechanism could help fighting blood cancer, as many modern therapies target the last step in cell division in tumor cells. The study was published in Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado6607).