Most anticancer drugs affect rapidly growing cells, both cancerous and normal, throughout the body.
As a result, they can produce negative side effects and limit the amount of treatment a patient can receive. For that reason, there's a great need for new therapies and delivery mechanisms that can carry anticancer drugs directly to tumors safely and efficiently. Vion's director of microbiology, David Bermudes, working together with Drs. John Pawelek and K. Brooks Low from Yale University, became interested in exploring the ability of bacteria to selectively invade tumor cells. They selected the Salmonella bacteria because much is known about it, making it possible to modify the bacteria for safety and to carry cancer-fighting genes.