Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991 TAG: 9103160249
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Because the new approach, reported Friday by researchers from the University of Texas, would affect only cancer cells, it would virtually eliminate all of the side effects now associated with radiation treatments and chemotherapy.
The Texas researchers caution, however, that the therapy will not be available to humans for many years.
Industrial and academic researchers throughout the United States have been intensively experimenting with the new approach, which involves the use of synthetic molecules called "antisense RNA." But their results have been disappointing so far, experts said, because the treatment seemed to work only sporadically.
Researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, however, report in Friday's issue of the journal Cancer Research that their variation of the technique seems to work almost every time. They hope to start testing it shortly on tumors in mice. - Los Angeles Times
by CNB