(Yicai Global) Sept. 20 -- For thousands of years arsenic has been infamously tied to 'poisoning' and 'sudden death,' but modern science has shown it may help save lives.

A research group from Hunan University's molecular science and biomedicine laboratory led by Tan Weihong has tried to prepare a new kind of albumin nanodrug with arsenic to expand the clinical applications of arsenic to chronic myelogenous leukemia and other tumors. The team published a research paper on its work in a top international chemistry magazine, Angewandte Chemie, Hunan University learned from Science and Technology Daily.

Arsenic trioxide can cause the apoptosis of cancer cells because it has a differentiation function for the acute promyelocyte. The medical community regards it as one of the standard medicines for curing acute promyelocytic leukemia, and it may improve the five-year disease-free survival rate of affected patients by 70 percent.

Arsenic trioxide cannot be effectively enriched in cancer cells during the treatment period of chronic myelogenous leukemia. The application of a high-dose treatment scheme can easily cause nerve injuries, disrupt liver function and lead to other severe side effects. The problem of how to apply arsenic trioxide in the treatment of malignant leukemia and solid tumors has become a hot research topic.

The research group enriched arsenic trioxide on human serum albumin modified by folic acid based on the reversible response mechanism of arsenic-sulfur keys sensitive to the acidity in tumor cells and the reducibility of glutathione, and made preparations to create the FA-HSA-ATO.

"The albumin has a certain function on targeted cancer cells and its surface modified folic acid can further and effectively target the cancer cells, to enhance the enrichment of arsenic trioxide in tumor cells, as the 'eyes' are offered for the arsenic trioxide, to make it more accurately position the tumor cells and then kill them by the input method, meanwhile, the enrichment can be reduced in the normal organs and tissues, for effectively treating diseases and reducing the toxic and side effects finally," said Peng Yongbo, an associate researcher in the group.