What is chemotherapy?

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Discovering Science: Medicinal Chemistry
© University of Leeds 
1 of 1 
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. 
[End of transcript] 

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Document Outline

• What is chemotherapy?