💙😇

Scientists make cancer cells manufacture their own poison @RIKEN_JP What if cancer cells could be tricked into manufacturing the very drugs designed to kill them? Scientists in Japan have developed an experimental strategy that does exactly that. The research team, led by Katsunori Tanaka at RIKEN, used a chemical reaction to manufacture an anticancer compound inside cancer cells. The trick involves carbon monoxide. Cancer cells naturally produce carbon monoxide as part of their metabolism. Researchers wanted to exploit this difference to selectively activate a drug-producing reaction inside tumours. Here is how it works. First, scientists designed a palladium-based molecular catalyst. They then protected it inside albumin, a protein that helps transport substances through the body. Once inside cancer cells, the naturally available carbon monoxide activates a chemical reaction that produces phenanthridinone derivatives. Some of these compounds have powerful cell-killing properties. The researchers tested their approach in cultured human liver, cervical, breast and lung cancer cells. They detected the newly manufactured compound inside cancer cells, but not in the non-cancerous cells used as controls. In additional experiments, the resulting anticancer compound damaged liver cancer cells. Why does this matter? One of the biggest challenges in chemotherapy is delivering enough drug to destroy cancer without causing unacceptable damage to healthy tissue. Instead of delivering the active poison directly, this approach attempts to manufacture it at the disease site. The limitation is significant: these are laboratory experiments, not demonstrated cancer treatment in animals or humans. But the underlying concept is fascinating — using the chemistry of cancer cells as a trigger for manufacturing their own treatment. [ Kawai M et al. Harnessing endogenous carbon monoxide for cancer-selective drug synthesis. Nature Communications. 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-77616-8 ]