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Targeting Cancer with Bugs and Liposomes: Ready, Aim, Fire

The Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, Maryland

Requests for reprints: Shibin Zhou, The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1650 Orleans Street/Room 520, Baltimore, MD 21231. Phone: 410-955-8886; E-mail: sbzhou{at}jhmi.edu.

One of the major challenges facing cancer therapy today is achieving specificity. Current efforts to meet this challenge are focused on developing targeted therapeutics specific to the cancer cell. An alternative approach is to selectively deliver cytotoxic agents to the tumor site. With this end in mind, liposomes optimized for physical robustness have been developed and used clinically as drug delivery vehicles. Paradoxically, the effectiveness of these liposomes is hampered by the suboptimal release of bioavailable drug. This article will highlight the recent advance in using a novel lipase secreted by the tumor-colonizing anaerobic bacterium Clostridium novyi-NT to induce the targeted release of liposomal payloads within tumors. [Cancer Res 2007;67(20):9605–8]