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| − | {{ETH_Zurich_Head_N_Suffix}}
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| − | {{ETH_Zurich_Header_N}}
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| − | <div class="contents">
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| − | <main>
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| − | <section class="toc">
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| − | <h1>TOC</h1>
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| − | </section>
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| − | <section class="main-content">
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| − | <div class="headline">
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| − | <h1>Background</h1>
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| − | </div>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <p>There are numerous approaches to treating cancer and in general, they can
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| − | be divided into two main groups ---local and systemic treatment options. Local
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| − | treatment options include surgery and radiation therapy, while systemic
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| − | options refer to chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy [1].
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| − | Typically, the patient will receive a combination of different treatments
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| − | extended over several weeks to months. To find out more about each of these
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| − | treatments, please click on the buttons below.</p>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <!-- TODO Port the style to CSS -->
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| − | <!-- TODO Style pros and cons properly -->
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| − | <details style="background-color:pink;">
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| − | <summary style="background-color:orange;">Surgery</summary>
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| − | <p>Surgery is a local treatment modality that includes removal of the visible
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| − | tumorous tissue along with a margin of healthy tissue of a variable size.</p>
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| − | | + | |
| − | <p>+ usually a one time procedure, well established, great for isolated solid
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| − | tumors</p>
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| − | <p> - locally invasive and damaging, can be contraindicated in patients with
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| − | comorbidities (e.g. older patients with cardiovascular diseases might be
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| − | unable to undergo anesthesia), not available for all sites, not suitable for
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| − | curing a metastatic disease, can't guarantee the removal of invisible
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| − | "micrometastases" in the vicinity of the primary tumor site, can be difficult to
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| − | repeat after the initial procedure fails</p>
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| − | </details>
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| − | </section>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <!-- TODO Port the style to CSS -->
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| − | <!-- TODO Style pros and cons properly -->
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| − | <!-- NOTE Maybe format pros and cons as bullet lists -->
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| − | <details style="background-color:pink;">
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| − | <summary style="background-color:orange;">Radiotherapy</summary>
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| − | <p>Radiotherapy includes using ionizing radiation to cause lethal mutations in
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| − | cancer cells. It relies on the fact that normal tissue repairs damage faster and
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| − | more efficiently than cancerous tissue.</p>
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| − | <p>+ not locally invasive, includes a large safety margin to ensure destruction of micrometastatic spreading</p>
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| − | | + | |
| − | <p>- conventional regimen takes several weeks to complete, normal tissue
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| − | between the skin and the tumor is always affected, long-term mutagenic and
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| − | carcinogenic effects (that are stochastic and therefore do no depend on the
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| − | dose), short-term acute damages</p>
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| − | </details>
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| − | </section>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <!-- TODO Port the style to CSS -->
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| − | <!-- TODO Style pros and cons properly -->
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| − | <!-- NOTE Maybe format pros and cons as bullet lists -->
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| − | <details style="background-color:pink;">
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| − | <summary style="background-color:orange;">Chemotherapy</summary>
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| − | <p>Chemotherapy is treatment of cancer with conventional anti-cancer drugs.
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| − | Typically, these are not specifically targeted, but tend to inflict more severe
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| − | damage to rapidly-dividing cells.</p>
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| − | <p>+ systemic treatment that can destroy all cancer cells in the body, cheap</p>
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| − | <p>- dose and therefore efficiency of killing limited by severe systemic side
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| − | effects due to lack of targeting, usually involves several treatments extended
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| − | over weeks or months</p>
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| − | </details>
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| − | </section>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <!-- TODO Port the style to CSS -->
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| − | <!-- TODO Style pros and cons properly -->
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| − | <!-- NOTE Maybe format pros and cons as bullet lists -->
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| − | <details style="background-color:pink;">
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| − | <summary style="background-color:orange;">Targeted Therapy</summary>
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| − | <p>Targeted therapy involves a group of drugs that are more specific than typical
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| − | chemotherapeutics. It includes small molecules and monoclonal antibodies
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| − | that target and interfere with specific pathways or antigens, ideally expressed
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| − | only in tumors and not in healthy tissue.</p>
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| − | | + | |
| − | <p>+ in theory, only damaging to the tumor and not the healthy tissue</p>
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| − | <p>- can be expensive, requires a specific, ideal target that very few types of
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| − | cancer offer, at least according to the current knowledge, systemic side
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| − | effects possible</p>
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| − | </details>
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| − | </section>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <!-- TODO Port the style to CSS -->
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| − | <!-- TODO Style pros and cons properly -->
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| − | <!-- NOTE Maybe format pros and cons as bullet lists -->
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| − | <details style="background-color:pink;">
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| − | <summary style="background-color:orange;">Immunotherapy</summary>
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| − | <p>Immunotherapy is one of the most recent approaches to treating cancer and
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| − | involves using the patient's own immune system to fight the tumor. At the
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| − | moment, CAR-T cells seem to be emerging as the most promising candidates
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| − | from this group.</p>
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| − | <p>+ tailored to an individual, potentially offering long lasting protection against
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| − | the cancer, autologous (patient-derived) cells and therefore not immunogenic,
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| − | specific for the cancer and can avoid normal tissue</p>
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| − | <p>- unpredictable systemic side effects seen in clinical trials, specific
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| − | targets/antigens still need to be found for every type of tumor, especially for
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| − | solid tumors, expensive</p>
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| − | </details>
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| − | </section>
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| − | </section>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <p>Some of the therapeutic options mentioned above are well established and
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| − | have been used for decades, while others represent pioneering treatments
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| − | developed thanks to advances in biological engineering. However, as seen
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| − | from the list of pros and cons, no strategy is perfect. Therefore, complete
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| − | removal of cancer without inflicting damage on the healthy tissue remains a
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| − | challenge [2].</p>
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| − | | + | |
| − | <p>To tackle this problem, we decided to look beyond these classical approaches
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| − | and from the point of view of a synthetic biologist. Our search led us to the
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| − | concept of bacterial cell therapy - a strategy for treating cancer that actually
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| − | dates back to the beginning of the 20th century but has since changed
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| − | significantly. In the beginnings, different species of unmodified bacteria were
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| − | given intravenously to cancer patients and were shown to accumulate
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| − | preferentially in the tumorous tissue. This attractive inherent feature has been
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| − | investigated since and is thought to be due to a combination of mechanisms,
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| − | including entrapment of bacteria in the chaotic vasculature of the tumor,
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| − | production of chemotactic agents in the tumor microenvironment and
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| − | protection from the immune system that the microenvironment, as an
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| − | immuno-privileged site, offers.</p>
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| − | | + | |
| − | <p>Although native cytotoxicity of the bacteria was shown to inhibit tumor growth,
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| − | simply administering unchanged bacteria intravenously has been connected
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| − | to severe side effects. To overcome this, engineering efforts have been made
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| − | and different modifications have been implemented and are currently being
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| − | tested in clinical trials. However, full potential of bacteria as an anti-cancer
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| − | agent has not yet been fulfilled [3].</p>
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| − | <p>To find out how we envisioned to take advantage of what bacterial cancer
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| − | therapy potentially offers, go to our project description (LINK).</p>
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| − | <section>
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| − | <h1>References</h1>
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| − | <ol>
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| − | <li><cite>Types of cancer treatment.</cite> cancer.gov. National Cancer Institute, 6 Apr. 2017. Web. 30 May 2017.</li>
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| − | <li>Miller, Kimberly D., et al. <cite>Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics</cite>, 2016. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians 66.4 (2016): 271-289.</li>
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| − | <li>Forbes, Neil S. <cite>Engineering the perfect (bacterial) cancer therapy.</cite> Nature reviews. Cancer 10.11 (2010): 785.
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| − | </ol>
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| − | </section>
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| − | </section>
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| − | </main>
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| − | </div>
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| − | </html>
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