Research may lessen chemotherapy side effects...

The Guardian, Thursday January 24th, 2002   

UPEI researchers are working on new chemotherapy drugs they hope will advance the fight against cancer and lessen the sickening side effects of some cancer treatments.   

Robert Haines, a UPEI chemistry professor, has recently been awarded a four-year $80,000 grant from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Haines hopes to reduce the hair loss, weakness and nausea that often accompany chemotherapy by using chemical compounds that become active only after they have entered a cancer cell.   

Chemotherapy uses a compound called cis-platin which shrinks tumours by using the metal platinum to attack the DNA in cancer cells and kill them. Haines hopes to use compounds that will be more effective than traditional chemotherapies in shielding platinum until it has reached its target.   

If successful, the new medicines may reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and could possibly be administered orally. The new compounds are being tested by Haines and research students at the Atlantic Veterinary College who are testing them on test-tube cultures of cancer cells.  

Source: http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/   

Visit the UPEI website for more details at http://upei.ca/cgi-new/view.cgi?id=878