Tag Archives: TNP-470

Pom pom nanomedicine

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have re-reformulated an old drug, TNP-470, for potential use in cancer treatments. There’s a back story for this drug which smacks of the penicillin story. They discovered TNP-470 by accident when there was some sort of fungal contamination.  Researchers found that TNP-470 could solve a problem with tumours.  (Brief tumour discussion: tumours need a blood supply so if you cut that off the tumour stops growing and shrinks, hopefully dying in the process. The body delivers blood via vessels. These blood vessels sometimes need to be replaced or entirely new ones created for new growth e.g. tumours. The process for replacing or growing new blood vessels is called angiogenesis.) TNP-470 stopped angiogenesis or, in the parlance, it was a good angiogenesis inhibitor. Unfortunately there were many side effects ranging from unpleasant to dangerous.

The folks in Boston tinkered with TNP-470 at the nanoscale and experimented with short polymers. They found that “pom pom” shaped structures (polymeric micelles) with TNP-470 at the core  proved successful as angiogenesis inhibitors with no observed side effects. They’re calling this new ‘old’ drug, Lodamin. Potentially, the drug could also be used for  macular degeneration and other diseases where blood vessel growth should be controlled or stopped. The research results were published in the June 29, 2008 issue of Nature Biotechnology.

I am busy working on The Nanotech Mysteries and will be posting irregularly for the next few weeks.