Scientists have successfully tested a treatment for an aggressive for of brain cancer which involves sending tiny nanoparticles of gold to kill the tumor cells. This technique could eventually lead to treatment for some of the most aggressive forms of cancer on the planet.
Currently, chemotherapy is one of the only methods we have of fighting cancer. However, the problem with chemotherapy is that the chemicals that are sued to prevent the replication of cancer cells have the potential to harm the body’s other cells, even the ones that it needs.
Over the past decade, however, the field of nanotechnology has provided researchers with a way that may soon enable them to deliver these chemicals directly to the tumors, thus sparing the rest of the body from its harmful effects.
“The reason chemotherapy doesn’t always work is because you can’t give enough of it without exposing the body to too many toxins,” explains Jack Hoopes of the Norris Cotton Cancer Centre in New Hampshire. “So you can’t get enough drug into the tumor to be effective. I think what nanotechnology offers is the ability to target things to individual cancer cells and that’s the future of cancer therapy.”
Nanoparticles are incredibly small, this allowing them to be injected directly into the tumor for more accessible cancers, or injected near the tumor with a combination of antibodies that target cancer cells. Tumors have a unique blood supply architecture which makes it easy for them to absorb nanoparticles.
“Instead of having a nice continuous sheet of cells as you see in normal blood vessels, the arrangement is very rapid, chaotic and disorganized,” says Helen Townley of the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University. “These gaps are up to 300nm, so as long as our nanoparticles are smaller than that, they’re going to leave the blood vessel and enter the tumor.”
Read more about the story at Phys.org.
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