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Scientists in India have come up with a new “smart” cancer drug named RK-251, one that stays switched off until it actually gets inside a cancer cell. The thinking behind it is fairly simple, chemotherapy in its usual form tends to attack healthy cells along with the tumour it is trying to kill, and a drug like this could avoid that problem altogether. The work was led jointly by the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), which functions under India’s Department of Science and Technology, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
Why Scientists Wanted Something More Targeted?
Standard cancer treatment tends to hurt healthy tissue almost as much as it hurts the tumour itself, and that is what leads to the harsh side effects patients often go through. For years now, researchers have wanted a drug that can travel through the body without doing damage, and only turns active once it reaches a tumour. This latest work brings that goal a fair bit closer.
The People Behind RK-251
Dr Ashish Bala at IASST and Dr K P Bhabak at IIT Guwahati led the team that built RK-251. The drug has been engineered so that it only becomes active inside a cancer cell, sparing the healthy ones around it.
How The Drug Actually Works
Cancer cells tend to produce more reactive oxygen species, or ROS, than normal cells do. RK-251 is built to respond to that. Once it gets into a cancer cell, the raised ROS levels set off the drug, which then releases a compound called NBDHEX. This compound goes after proteins that cancer cells depend on to keep growing and to resist treatment.
What The Early Results Show
So far, in preclinical testing, RK-251 has shown strong effects against aggressive triple-negative breast cancer cells, and barely touched the healthy ones. It was also tested on zebrafish embryos, where behavioural observations turned up no obvious signs of toxicity. On top of that, the drug lit up as expected wherever reactive oxygen species were present, which researchers see as a positive sign for taking the work further.
The Road Ahead
The team says a fair amount of research still lies ahead before RK-251 can be tried out on actual patients. The ACS Journal of Medicinal Chemistry published the study.
Khushi Patel is a Senior Sub Editor at NewsX, covering automotive, technology, Lifestyle, entertainment, and mainstream news. She previously worked as a Copy Editor at Times Network and has written automotive editorial content, including comparison pieces, for TimesDrive.
