The vast majority of the current medicines for treating tumors - the so-called chemotherapeutics - are seldom specific. Indeed, because a chemotherapy treatment is not only toxic to cancer cells but to the body’s normal cells as well, patients often experience severe side effects. The VIB research team under the direction of Hilde Revets and Patrick De Baetselier (Department of Molecular and Cellular Interactions, Free University of Brussels) is searching - successfully - for new, specific, effective cancer therapies. For several years now, the leading strategy in the treatment of cancer has been based on the production of antibodies, which are protective substances produced in the organism to defend against intruding foreign bodies - protecting us against infections arising from bacteria and viruses. Antibodies can also react with tumor-specific substances that appear only on the cancer cell membrane. These ingenious antibodies seek out and bind very specifically to the cancer cells. As a result, the tumor is removed in a highly targeted, specific manner. At the moment, ten such medicines are available to patients. But even though these antibody medicines are a good step in the right direction, there is clearly room for improvement. The antibodies that are being used are large proteins that have difficulty penetrating tumors. In addition, their complex structure makes large-scale production very difficult and expensive.
