New drug protects against radiation damage: study

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Researchers have developed a new drug that can protect healthy cells and bone marrow against anti-cancer radiation therapy and maybe even against the effects of a nuclear bomb, a study has shown.

While radiation therapy is used effectively to destroy cancerous tumors, it can have a devastating effect on healthy cells, noted the study published in the April 11 edition of the American review Science.

But a new drug protects gastrointestinal cells and bone marrow in mice and monkeys from radiation without reducing the treatment's effectiveness, lead author Lyudmila Burdelya of New York state's Roswell Park Cancer Institute said.

Dr Richard Kolesnick, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said the research represented "a...