bioterrorism and cancer?

[munky99999]

couple months ago i dunno why really. but i was reading up on Botox. which is ofcoarse related to the good old "Botulin toxin" and this screws with acetocolyne(sp?) cycle. which then this causes the cells to eventually die.

Now what im wondering. could this be used as like a cancer cure? Infect the cancer cells and then when the acetocolyne is screwed up the cancer cells die.

and if the answer is going to be something like, you cant infect certain cells with Botulin like you propose. Then maybe another toxin which does something similar. or a new one which is design to such.

and from one of my other going threads. You sure can design a drug to do the effect you want. maybe some bad side effects but meh.

[Monique]

There are many drugs available that kill cells, the problem is how do you target the right cells? Most anti-cancer drugs are designed to target molecules involved in cell replication, since tumor cells divide rapidly and are thus sensitized. There are attempts to look for tumor-specific expressed markers that can be used to target only the cancerous cells, but this has not been very effective yet.

Interesting that you mention bioterrorism, I remember the connection between mustard gas and anti-cancer drugs. It was noted that mustard gas victims had a low blood count: they had few white blood cells, and their bone marrow was breaking down. They did tests on mice which led to the clinical use of nitrogen mustards for chemotherapy (it an alkylating agent).

[Kaoku]

Interesting that you mention bioterrorism, I remember the connection between mustard gas and anti-cancer drugs. It was noted that mustard gas victims had a low blood count: they had few white blood cells, and their bone marrow was breaking down. They did tests on mice which led to the clinical use of nitrogen mustards for chemotherapy (it an alkylating agent).
some links to that would prove you to be truly better ?

Kaoko