Another treatment for diseases looks like a new hope. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in the U.S., created a nanoparticle that manipulates the immune system and effectively fights cancer cells.
Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021
The new concept, Protein–Antibody Conjugates or PACs, combines two different approaches to drug delivery.
One is biologics, where the idea is to target a defective protein in the system by delivering proteins to it. An example of this is the case of insulin treatment. If a person is short of insulin, which is a protein, they are given a shot of this to balance the system.
The other approach is to use antibodies for drug delivery. Antibodies are something the body produces to detect a foreign substance inside the body.
Protein–antibody conjugates or PACs, developed by the group, which have a protein attached to the antibody, can zero in on, say, pancreatic cancer cells.
This could have impact on incurable diseases, so-called undruggable ones like pancreatic cancer.