• Question: How do different types of sugars kill different types of cancers?

    Asked by Lewis Hughes to Steven on 15 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 15 Nov 2016:

      Hi Lewis Hughes,

      Good question! So sugars on their own don’t kill different types of cancers. Sugars are very active inside our bodies, and make up a large part of us… they are present on the surfaces of cells and allow them to bind to each other, they are attached to proteins and are used for energy production! There are a massive range of different carbohydrates in the body, and many are very interesting from a therapeutic point of view. There are carbohydrates that are found only on the surface of cancer cells too – these are under research as potential diagnostics or treatments for cancer (see mucins and sialic acid!). Cancer cells also divide very quickly, meaning that they need lots of energy. Because of this, cancer cells consume lots of glucose! Chemists have learnt that if you attach glucose to a drug, then the drug is uptaken by cancer cells more than healthy cells… increasing it’s selectivity!

      The molecules that I’ve been making have glucose and another sugar, mannose as part of their structure. These sugars help to bind to specific DNA sequences, while also hopefully helping cancer cell uptake. The rest of the structure has positive charges and aromatic rings though, it’s not just sugar! 🙂

      Hopefully that answers your question?
      Steve

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