According to a recent report researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine have been experimenting with bee venom in order to try and kills off cancer cells in the body. The researchers are said to be using ‘nanobees’, which are nano particles that are used to deliver the venom, melittin, into the body.
The researchers at the St Louis medical school experimented with mice, and found that using these nano particles to deliver bee venom into the bodies of the mice resulted in some tumours being stopped in terms of growth and some even shrinking.
One of the researchers involved in the project stated: “The nanobees fly in, land on the surface of cells and deposit their cargo of melittin, which rapidly merges with the target cells. We’ve shown that the bee toxin gets taken into the cells, where it pokes holes in their internal structures.”
Another doctor stated: “Nanobees are an effective way to package the useful, but potentially deadly, melittin, sequestering it so that it neither harms normal cells nor gets degraded before it reaches its target.”
2 users commented in " Researchers Using Bee Venom to Kill Cancer Cells "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackVery interesting….Are they real bees or do they just call them that? I’m thinking not but don’t really know.
I saw a blog about apitherapy recently that was really interesting (http://iconsinmedicine.wordpress.com/). It’s a shame that this treatment and others aren’t covered by insurance, or even considered as being “useful.” For individuals with MS and other conditions, this type of treatment has the potential to be very valuable. The organization that puts out this blog (http://www.iconsinmed.org) is also really interesting. They use telemedicine to connect healthcare providers in the developing world with specialists to help improve care worldwide.
@Lostinthemiddle: Nanobees are tiny particles (nanoparticles) that are impregnated with a chemical found in bee venom (not actual bees, but the venom they contain does acts the similar to bee venom). You might find this interesting: http://iconsinmedicine.wordpress.com/ and it might provide more information to clarify for you.
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