Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London have developed a delivery method for a common chemotherapy drug that reduced ovarian cancer tumors in animal models 65 times more than traditional delivery methods.

Dr. Davidson Ateh, study leader, along with Queen Mary colleagues Joanne Martin and lain McNeish, have found a way to fool cancer cells into accepting drug-filled microparticles.

"It's like we've made a re-enactment of the battle of Troy but on the tiniest scale," said Ateh. "In Troy, the Greeks fooled the Trojans into accepting a hollow horse full of soldiers -- we've managed to trick cancer cells into accepting drug-filled microparticles."

Ateh and his colleagues were able to do this by coating small microparticles, which are about a hundredth the diameter of a human hair, with a protein called CD95. CD95 attaches to another protein called CD95L, which is more commonly found on the surface of cancer cells than healthy cells. 

CD95 attaches itself to the cancer cells' CD95L, and the cancer cells ingest the CD95 along with the microparticle. Once inside, the microparticle unloads a common chemotherapy drug called paclitaxel, which decreases the size of the tumor. 

"Other researchers had already noticed that cancer cells may use this CD95-CD95L arrangement to avoid being destroyed by the immune system, which is why they display more CD95L than normal cells," said Ateh. "We've managed to turn this to our advantage and hijack the cancer cells' own trick-of-the-trade to get out 'Trojan Horse' through the gate." 

The new method of delivery, which has been dubbed OncoJanTM, has already proved to reduce ovarian cancer tumors in animal models 65 times more than traditional delivery methods. Now, the technique is being developed for clinical use. Ateh helped create the start-up company, called BioMoti, which will develop this technology for clinical use. 

The team plans to encourage other pharmaceutical companies to partner with BioMoti for clinical development as well. 

"There are lots of drugs that we would like to deliver into cells -- not just chemotherapies -- and this could work for those too," said Martin. "For example, there are new classes of drugs to treat tumors, such as biological therapies. If we could load biological therapies in the same CD95-coated particles, then there's no reason why they couldn't also be delivered in this way."

This study was published in Biomaterials.