Abstract

Cancer-homing toxins are a group of man-made cytotoxic molecules targeting cancer cells. In the past decade they have demonstrated potential as cancer therapeutics. These molecules contain a toxin, natural or usually derivatized, connected to a cancerhoming module, such as a monoclonal antibody or growth factor or their derivatives. Various cancer-homing toxins have been designed and tested in cell-lines, animalmodels and clinical trials. We review some of these data and discuss ways to better design cancer-homing toxins in the light of advances in cancer genomics, antibodyengineering techniques and computational algorithms.

Keywords: Downregulation, Toxins, Targeted-therapy, Cancer, Vascular-leak syndrome, Drug- design, Super-antigen, Clinicaltrials