New cancer drug delivery system is effective and reversible

Jianjun Cheng, professor of materials science and engineering, left; Rong Tong, graduate student, center, and Yi Lu, professor of chemistry, were on a team that developed a reversible method for delivering cancer drugs to tumor cells. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer CHAMPAIGN, lll. For cancer drug developers, finding an agent that kills tumor cells is only part of the equation. The drug must also spare healthy cells. And - ideally - its effects will be reversible, to cut short any potentially dangerous side effects. University of Illinois researchers report that they have assembled a new cancer drug delivery system that, in cell culture, achieves all of the above. The findings appear this month in the journal Angewandte Chemie .