Add radioactivity to the Listeria

An Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University team has used radiolabeled Listeria monocytogenes to efficiently treat metastatic pancreatic cancer in mice.¹ Future studies could involve comparing or combining the strategy with existing nonradioactive immunotherapies that utilize the bacterium as a vector.

L. monocytogenes is a food-borne pathogen that can infect a range of mammalian cell types and cause potentially fatal illness (listeriosis) in immune-compromised individuals. For the last decade, attenuated strains of the bacterium have served as vectors for delivering antigens with high specificity to dendritic cells, thereby eliciting an immune response to cancer or infection.²...