{"id":44549,"date":"2026-05-16T12:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T17:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=44549"},"modified":"2026-05-16T12:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T17:08:20","slug":"word-of-the-day-1115","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/05\/16\/word-of-the-day-1115\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Radioligand<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A\u00a0<b>radioligand<\/b>\u00a0is a microscopic particle which consists of a\u00a0<a title=\"Radiopharmaceutical\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Radiopharmaceutical\">therapeutic radioactive isotope<\/a>\u00a0and the cell-targeting compound \u2014 the ligand. The\u00a0<a title=\"Ligand\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ligand\">ligand<\/a>\u00a0is the target binding site; it may be on the surface of the targeted cancer cell for therapeutic purposes.<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Radioligand\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Wikipedia<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve heard of ligands being used to convey various poisons to cancer, as a form of chemotherapy, but this one is new. Noted in &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/issue\/3592\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>We need more radioactive drugs. Can we make them from nuclear waste?<\/em><\/a>&#8221; Mark Peplow, <em><strong>NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (25 April 2026; paywall):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The more recent buzz around radioactivity in medicine centres on something called radioligand therapy. This addresses the well-known problem with radiotherapy: it can damage healthy cells as well as tumours. The idea is to tether a radioactive atom to a molecule called a ligand that seeks out and binds to cancer cells. In this way, the drugs deliver a precise strike with fewer side effects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Radioligand: A\u00a0radioligand\u00a0is a microscopic particle which consists of a\u00a0therapeutic radioactive isotope\u00a0and the cell-targeting compound \u2014 the ligand. The\u00a0ligand\u00a0is the target binding site; it may be on the surface of the targeted cancer cell for therapeutic purposes. [Wikipedia] I&#8217;ve heard of ligands being used to convey various poisons to cancer, as \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/05\/16\/word-of-the-day-1115\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44550,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44549\/revisions\/44550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}