Bacteria in yoghurt may transform cancer battle

A BACTERIA commonly found in probiotic yoghurt could revolutionise the battle against cancer, groundbreaking research has shown.

The discovery could potentially eliminate the need for painful IV injections when administering chemo- therapy drugs and would not have the toxic effect many current cancer therapies have on healthy cells.

Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Centre (CCRC) in University College Cork have shown that harmless bacteria (bifidobacteria) have a natural ability to travel through the body and grow specifically inside tumours.

CCRC principal investigator Dr Mark Tangney said they had demonstrated for the first time that following ingestion of bifidobacteria in large numbers, “bacteria can leak out from the gut into the blood and grow inside tumours throughout the body where they can produce whatever we want”.

“We can now genetically engineer these bacteria so that they will pump out anti-cancer agents specifically inside tumours,” he said.

Dr Tangney said given the main goal of cancer treatment is to focus therapy on tumours without harming healthy cells, their findings were very exciting.

“When a patient’s cancer has spread, then ideally, a treatment should be administered throughout a patient’s body (eg intravenous administration) to allow treatment of any tumours present, including secondary tumours at early stages of development.

“However, current chemotherapy drugs administered in this fashion are toxic to many healthy cell types, often resulting in severe side effects for the patient. This is why we are so excited about this research,” Dr Tangney said.

If the therapy proves successful in clinical trials, Dr Tangney said treatment in the future “could be as simple as handing someone a yoghurt suspension containing millions of bacterium”.

“The particular type we’re using we know goes very well in yoghurt because it is already put into probiotic yoghurt,” Dr Tangney said.

However, he said it would have to be specifically manufactured; people are “not going to get a cure by buying Yoplait off the shelf”.

The research findings are published today in the prestigious Molecular Therapy edition of the international science journal, Nature.

Noriyuki Kasahara, president of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy of Cancer said the work at CCRC was cutting edge: “No one has ever shown before that you can take an orally administered safe bacteria and have it hone into a tumour mass before and act there.”

Work on the project has been under way for two years and was funded by the Health Research Board.

Dr Tangney said clinical trials are “a long way off”.