Yes, despite the cautions you cite from the article this potential treatment is still far better than any conventional chemotherapy, which just steeps the body in poison in hopes of killing the right stuff.

The article addresses this at the end – "The selectivity of the damage still depends on the antibody's ability to hook onto the right cells, and on the absence of other enzymes in the body that also activate the prodrug." [emphasis mine]

Seems like both of those could be significant hurdles, but in the eyes of those with terminal cancer, an approach that might amount to Russian Roulette is likely better than nothing.

and then said person turns to slush? =] That would be freaky, but I'm sure not the case.

Another thought just occurred to me. What does the rest of the surrounding tissue do with the drug? Do normal cells just take it in but don't trigger it? Do they just throw it away after a while or, do they convert into something else?

On gets the disturbing (And I hope inaccurate!) image of zillions of molecular grenades just waiting to be triggered in benign tissue–sort of a two step nerve gas. Step one implants the bomb molecules and then step two, perhaps days later, implants the enzyme that triggers the carbon ring. The person then suddenly becomes very ill.

These molecular smart bombs (Arguably the magic bullets dreamed of since Nixon's declaration of "The War on Cancer.") are probably much better than conventional chemotherapy but the ones described so far seem to hinge on recognition of a cancer cell.

What's to prevent the antibody from mistakenly triggering the smart bomb on a benign cell? Some forms of cancer are very hard to destinguish from normal tissue. The whole thing seems to hinge on what is cancerous versus what is not.