Research involves new, safer ways to deliver biomedical agents against tumors

Jeremy L. Steinbacher, PhD, is among a new generation of scientists trying to improve their aim and approach to killing cancer cells. The Canisius College professor of chemistry/biochemistry is working to develop biomedical agents that more accurately target and attack tumors.

"When cancer is treated with traditional chemotherapy the drug goes everywhere in the body with the hope that it reaches enough malignant cells to kill them," explains Steinbacher. It's a proven cancer treatment but chemotherapy also damages healthy cells and triggers debilitating side effects. Steinbacher's research involves new, safer ways to deliver this life-saving therapy. "The idea it to package up chemotherapeutics inside microscopic nano-vehicles, which then go straight to the source of the diseased tissue," says Steinbacher. "If we can do that, we can then deliver higher doses of the drug to just the tumor, and patients won't suffer side effects or damage to healthy tissue."