Spider Silk Drugs Help Fight Cancer

Jun-17-18 An innovative method of wrapping fragile drugs in spider silk could help in the development of cancer-fighting immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy shows promise as a cancer-fighter, but the peptides that must be transported to the lymph nodes to trigger the immune response are too fragile to make it there on their own. To give these powerful—yet delicate—proteins a boost, researchers from Germany and Switzerland wrapped them in synthetic spider silk biopolymers, which protected the peptides from light and heat as they traveled to the lymph nodes.

The team believes the technique could be used to transport other types of medications as well, but more work needs to be done in that arena.

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[NEWATLAS.COM]
[UNIGE.CH]

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