Word: chlorotoxin
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...Chlorotoxin, a substance in the venom of the giant Israeli scorpion, a 5-in.-long species known as the "death stalker," may offer hope for the 25,000 Americans each year who have glioma, an incurable, rapidly spreading form of brain cancer. Surgery provides only a temporary respite, and the few experimental therapies extend a patient's life span only weeks...
Identified by neurobiologist Harald Sontheimer, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, chlorotoxin targets glioma cells and blocks their fluid-balancing chloride channels, preventing them from shrinking and then migrating elsewhere in the brain. Sontheimer's group is about to submit a clinical-trial protocol to the FDA. If approved, as many as 30 glioma patients could begin receiving chlorotoxin tagged with radioactive iodine as early as July. If the strategy works, Sontheimer says, "chlorotoxin could become a platform for delivering all sorts of drugs...
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