Scientists from Cleveland BioLabs have come up with a new approach to protecting the body's most radition-sensitive tissues from being damaged by creating a new drug, Protectan, that promises to prevent serious side-effects of cancer treatment.
Radiation destroys cancer cells in patients undergoing chemotherapy, but certain bone marrow and gastrointestinal tissues are overly sensitive in different patients, limiting how much radiation physicians can give cancer patients.
"It has important implications for radiation exposure," said Dr. David Kirsch, a Duke University radiation oncologist who wasn't involved in the drug research.
A single dose of the experimental drug protected both mice and monkeys from what should have been lethal doses of radiation.
Scientists are still in the early stages of research and the government is helping to fund the experiments thst may begin testing on humans as early as this summer.
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