Discovering Science: Medicinal Chemistry
© University of Leeds
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What is chemotherapy?
Perhaps the most commonly encountered chemotherapy agent is carboplatin. This, or a close
structural variant, cisplatin, is often the standard agent which is given to patients when we talk about
traditional chemotherapy. The trouble with carboplatin is that it kills many more healthy
cells than it
does cancer cells. This lack of selectivity is linked to the severe side effects commonly associated
with patients undergoing cancer treatment, such as sickness and hair loss. Additionally, carboplatin is
also only effective in the treatment of a few fast growing cancers. Carboplatin works by
disrupting the
function of DNA, which is present at every one of the cells in our body.
The trouble with targeting DNA is that the healthy cells are killed just as easily
and often more easily
than the cancer cells. It is this lack of selectivity for cancer cells which drives us as
researchers to
develop newer, better, and most importantly, safer chemotherapeutic agents. Fortunately,
cancer
chemotherapy is now entering a new era of molecular targeted therapeutics.
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