Salmonella may hold the key to targeting cancer cells

Salmonella has a reputation for being a particularly aggressive illness-causing bacteria, but it turns out it may not be all bad.

Scientists from the Cancer Research Center and the University of Missouri believe it could hold the key to targeting cancer cells while leaving the healthy ones alone.

Among Salmonella's unique attributes is the ability to crash through barriers around cells and multiply.

The team used this to its advantage by using a 50-year-old salmonella sample to create a non-toxic strain with enhanced skills in locating and obliterating cancer.

The modified version was then injected into the circulatory systems of mice suffering from prostate cancer.

Robert Kazmierczak, one of the researchers, said, "We found that the mice tolerated the treatment well and when examined, their prostate tumors decreased by about 20 percent compared to the control group."

He also commented, "The goal of this treatment is to develop a bacterial vector that can destroy the tumor from the inside out and reduce the amount of side effects endured by patients with cancer."

Scroll through to see common foods suspected of causing cancer:

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