TWO scientists have received a £280,000 grant to develop a new type of chemotherapy for breast cancer patients.

The University of Bradford's Dr Robert Falconer and Dr Klaus Pors will work on two separate projects in a bid to develop treatment which only kills cancer cells, puts a stop to some debilitating side effects and gives patients a better quality of life.

Both scientists will develop the chemotherapy treatment using natural compounds called duocarmycins.

At the moment, the undiluted compounds are too strong to use on the human body because they kill both healthy and cancerous cells, however, the doctors' work will hopefully see them develop something which only stops tumours.

Dr Falconer, Reader in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Bradford, explained: "Duocarmycins are a very good cancer drug but they are too toxic to be given to patients on their own.

"They will kill every cell they come into contact with.

"There are certain doses you can give to patients but you cannot give what you need to kill cancer cells before you see side effects.

"We are able to target that drug selectively to the tumour and not affect the healthy cells.

"It's removing the toxic effect from the healthy cells and the toxic drug will only be released when it is inside the tumour."

It is hoped Dr Falconer's work will help tackle the type of tumour seen in a triple negative breast cancer patients, which can often resist some chemotherapy treatments.

"This is very useful against some tumours that have developed some resistance," added Dr Falconer.

"We are hopeful it will get rid of some of the side effects and give the patients a better quality of life.

"The triple negative group of patients are particularly difficult to treat and we would hope for an impact on that group."

The funding, provided by research charity Breast Cancer Now, is for two and a half years, with Dr Falconer hopeful, if everything goes well, it will be ready to test on a patient in five years.

Dr Pors, Senior Lecturer in Chemical Biology at the University of Bradford has previously created a new form of duocarmycins that are activated by enzymes often overproduced by breast cancer cells, called CYPs.

With Breast Cancer Now funding, Dr Pors’ team will now investigate whether these forms of duocarmycins can kill triple negative breast cancer cells in the lab, and explore whether combining them with other anti-cancer drugs or with radiotherapy, could make them even more effective.

He added: "We have demonstrated that modified duocarmycins can be activated by CYPs in breast cancer cells, and we now need to investigate the potential of our technology in combination with other drugs and radiotherapy."

Dr Simon Vincent, Director of Research at charity Breast Cancer Now, added: "If it can be delivered safely, this powerful new chemotherapy option could help improve survival outcomes for women diagnosed with aggressive forms of breast cancer, who currently lack effective, targeted therapies."