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Updated: Sep 3, 2026

Pretargeted Radioimmunotherapy Based on the Inverse Electron Demand Diels-Alder Reaction
Published on: January 29, 2019
Ligand-targeted therapeutics in anticancer therapy
1Department of Pharmacology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H7. terry.allen@ualberta.ca
Abstract:
Cytotoxic chemotherapy or radiotherapy of cancer is limited by serious, sometimes life-threatening, side effects that arise from toxicities to sensitive normal cells because the therapies are not selective for malignant cells. So how can selectivity be improved? One strategy is to couple the therapeutics to antibodies or other ligands that recognize tumour-associated antigens. This increases the exposure of the malignant cells, and reduces the exposure of normal cells, to the ligand-targeted therapeutics.
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