Drugs of the near future will be microdevices that search out and destroy germs without the side effects of conventional therapies.
The patient leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, waiting to receive his first chemotherapy treatment for advanced colon cancer. His nurse locates the tiny catheter just beneath the skin of his chest and connects it to an IV tube. A clear fluid containing an anticancer drug travels down the tube, through the catheter and into the man’s blood vessels. The drug travels throughout his body in search of the fast-dividing cells characteristic of cancer-but only a relatively small portion of the drug will reach those cells. Instead, much of it will end up attacking hair follicles, immune system cells and tissues where noncancerous cells are dividing quickly. The treatment lasts an hour as the patient sits there, apprehensive not only about his disease but about side effects. Will he lose his hair? Will he feel nauseous? A few hours later, nausea sets in. By the next treatment, the hair loss he feared has begun.