Bioluminescent activated destruction or BLADe refers to a technique used to kill
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
cells.
Science Daily
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It works by first altering the cells in an organism
An organism is any life, living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have be ...
, once they become cancerous, to create the firefly
The Lampyridae are a family of elateroid beetles with more than 2,000 described species, many of which are light-emitting. They are soft-bodied beetles commonly called fireflies, lightning bugs, or glowworms for their conspicuous production ...
light source luciferin and luciferase to create light. The light itself would have little effect on the cells if it wasn't for the addition of a photosensitizing agent which essentially makes the cells much more vulnerable to light. It can specifically eradicate the cancer cells with no negative side-effects to normal cells. Trials on humans have yet to be seen, although the trials on mice
A mouse (: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
looked rather promising for it.
Notes
References
* Zimmer, Marc; ''Glowing Genes: A revolution in Biotechnology''
* Kim, Y. R., Kim, S., Choi, J. W., Choi, S. Y., Lee, S. H., Kim, H., Hahn, S. K., Koh, G. Y., & Yun, S. H. (2015)
Bioluminescence-activated deep-tissue photodynamic therapy of cancer
Theranostics, 5(8), 805–817.
Experimental cancer treatments
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