The new episode of Short Talks From the Hill, a research podcast of the University of Arkansas, features Hudson Beyzavi, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Earlier this year, Beyzavi and his research team published an article in Advanced Therapeutics, a leading journal, reporting they had developed a new drug candidate that efficiently kills triple negative breast cancer cells.  

Triple negative breast cancer, or TNBC, cannot be treated with receptor-targeted therapy and is therefore one of the most aggressive and fatal types of breast cancer. The only approved treatment for TNBC is also highly toxic and damages healthy cells.

Beyzavi's team linked a new class of nanomaterials, called metal organic frameworks, with the ligands of an already developed photodynamic therapy drug to create a nano-porous material that targets and kills tumor cells without creating toxicity for normal cells. Their discovery will help clinicians target breast cancer cells directly, while avoiding the adverse, toxic side effects of chemotherapy.

"One of the aspects of the anti-cancer drug is that it should be selective," Beyzavi says in the podcast. "It means they should not harm any healthy cells but specifically the cancer cells, so we always have a control, which would be just the healthy cells present. … This drug is highly selective, so you can see that the healthy cells are intact, whereas the tumor cells of a specific interest that we have in this case, TNBC, they were damaged up to like over 90 percent."

To listen to Beyzavi discuss his research, go to Arkansas Research, the home of research news at the University of Arkansas, or visit the "On Air" and "Programs" link at KUAF.com.

Short Talks From the Hill highlights research and scholarly work at the University of Arkansas. Each segment features a university researcher discussing his or her work. Previous podcasts can be found under the Short Talks From the Hill link at arkansasresearch.uark.edu.

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