Cancer is the leading cause of death in Israel for both men and women, and one of the leading causes of death in the Western world. In light of this tragic fact, cancer research is considered particularly active, and in recent years it is focused on targeted therapies — treatments that aim to more effectively attack cancer cells while reducing general systemic damage, as occurs with broad-spectrum chemotherapy treatments that harm other body organs.
NanoGhost, an Israeli biotech company, introduces one of the most exciting and promising technologies of recent years in this field.[OB1] NanoGhost develops a highly selective first-in-class drug targeting platform (NanoGhosts/NGs) from the cell membrane of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), cells with known tropism to cancer and sites of inflammation. NGs are equipped with the MSCs inherent ability to target cancer, can be loaded with a variety of drugs such as small molecules, proteins, mRNA or other nucleic acids. The entrepreneur who conceived this revolutionary technology is Prof. Marcelle Machluf, the outgoing dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion and a leading researcher in the fields of drug delivery, gene therapy and tissue engineering. NanoGhost harnesses the natural tropism of MSCs to cancer in a drug targeting platform.
“We use stem cells that have a natural ability to reach cancer cells,” says Yonatan Malca, NanoGhost CEO and a founding partner alongside Prof. Machluf. “We empty the stem cells of their contents and leave only the cell membranes from which, we produce the nanoparticles named NanoGhosts. Since NGs are produced from the mesenchymal stem cell membrane, that has the natural ability to reach cancer cells, this ability to reach the cancerous tumor is preserved in NGs. We load NGs with anti-cancer drugs and then inject them into the blood. Through the bloodstream, the NGs loaded with the anti-cancer drug, make their way to the tumor cells that receive them without realizing that they are actually a ‘Trojan horse’. Upon reaching the tumor cells, they unload the drugs that are supposed to destroy the cancer cells in a targeted and effective manner. Using NGs loaded with chemotherapy allows a significant increase in the effectiveness of the drug while at the same time a significanty reduction in the damage that the drug causes to healthy body organs.”
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