Seeking ways to avoid the serious side effects often brought on by chemotherapy,the American Cancer Society has awarded a four-year,$642,000 research grant to Longqin Hu,Ph.D.,a researcher at Rutgers University in Piscataway,NJ. Dr.Hu is exploring ways to deliver toxic agents exclusively to cancer cells,so that healthy cells go unharmed by chemotherapy.

In order to selectively target the cancer cells,Dr.Hu is exploring ways to convert safe chemical compounds into toxic substances only after the compounds have reached the cancer cells.

“We ’re working on developing tripartite drug conjugates that will deliver anti-cancer drugs in their active chemical form to selected cancer cells.This type of delivery system will allow us to attack cancer cells with increased doses of anti-cancer drugs without harming normal cells,” said Dr. Hu.

Dr. Hu is synthesizing different chemical compounds and testing them using tumor-specific enzymes like the prostate-specific antigen (PSA)as an activation enzyme. If his work is successful,it could open the door to new chemotherapy agents for the treatment of solid tumors such as breast cancer and advanced prostate cancer, with little or no side effects.