A substance or agent that kills or destroys cells.
From Greek 'kytos' (cell) + Latin '-cida' (killer/killing). A medical and biological term created in the 20th century to describe cell-destroying agents including toxins, medicines, and pathogens.
Chemotherapy drugs are a type of cytocide—they deliberately kill cancer cells, but the tricky part is making them target only bad cells and not healthy ones. Scientists are constantly developing smarter cytocides that can tell the difference between friend and foe cells!
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