Insect venom can be used to develop anticancer drugs

  There are countless insects around us. You may be used to adding a spoonful of honey to your breakfast, or you may accidentally be bitten by a bee on your way home from get off work. The impact of insects on human life far exceeds my expectations.

  Recently, Dipanjan Pan, a scientist at the University of Illinois in the United States, said that if people can accurately control the amount of insect venom delivered, it is possible to use insect venom to treat cancer. DipanjanPan’s laboratory has developed a nano-drug carrier system that can deliver insect venom directly to the tumor site without affecting the physiological activity of normal tissue cells. The purpose of DipanjanPan et al. is to use this nano-drug delivery system to deliver insect venom components to breast cancer cells and melanoma cells under laboratory conditions. At the same time, this drug delivery system avoids monitoring the immune system. high efficiency. Dipanjan Pan said that they are now using the active ingredients in snake and scorpion venom. In the next step, researchers will test their efficacy in mice and pigs.

  It is estimated that this treatment will enter the clinical research phase in the next 3-5 years. Coincidentally, researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine in the United States also tried to develop a nano-drug carrier system for the delivery of bee venom proteins in bee venom, thereby treating HIV.