Gold-centered nanospheres have been show to be administered safely by two routes in a mouse study led by investigators at the Stanford University School of Medecine. This is the first step that would allow further studies into nanotoxicology possibly leading to clinical trials within a year and a half. This study brings hope for using [...]
Protein drugs have become ever more prevalent as treatments for a wide variety of diseases. However the drugs have always come to the market with a flaw. They may be highly specialised for their job and highly effective at doing it. However they are usually only present in the blood for a very short time [...]
Image: Human breast cancer cell tagged with quantum dots Cancer Nanomedicine is developing to cover a wide range of applications from imaging, diagnosing to treating cancers with targeted therapies. Cancer Nanomedicine works on the theory that nanometer sized particles of gold, nanomicelles and quantum dots (QDs) have unique functional properties that differ from other available [...]
One of the most common causes of death relating to cancer in patients with solid tumours is caused by tumour cells that break off from primary tumours. They can travel to other organs and tissues in the body and set up secondary tumour colonies known as metastasise. These cells once in the peripheral bloodstream are known [...]
Bioengineers at Duke University have developed a simple and importantly inexpensive method for loading nano-scale delivery vehicles with cancer drug payloads. This nanoformulation was shown to eliminate tumours after a single treatment. In a great step forward for limiting toxicity the nano-scale delivery vehicle breaks down into harmless byproducts after delivery of the drug. These nano-delivery [...]
Professor Errki Ruoslahti of the University of California Santa Barbara’s Burnham Institute for Medical Research has been awarded $2.8 million to develop ‘Hybrid nanotechnologies for detection and synergistic therapies of breast cancer’. The research team are developing new diagnostic tools to improve early detection, and reduce unnecessary procedures. This will be achieved through the use [...]
Albumin, a tiny particle found readily in the blood is being used to carry radioactive isotopes to sites of cancerous tumors in the body. With the added benefit of avoiding many of the side-effects of conventional radiotherapies. In the current issue of the International Journal of Nanotechnology and Biomaterials, Virginia Nazarica Borza et al, from [...]
A new method to enhance drug delivery has been developed at UC Santa Barbara. The method utilizes a biological system of gaining access to cells. One of the most difficult barriers to cross in drug delivery is the movement of the drug from the circulation into the tissue. This technique provides a ay of achieving [...]
When a patient presents with brain cancer the biggest issue to circumvent is the delicacy of the brain and treating it. After all what is effectively being done is killing brain tissue that has become ‘diseased’ by transformation into cancerous cells. So whichever method of cancer treatment you use there are going to be inherent [...]
Researchers at the University of Arkansas have developed a novel imaging technique that uses coated carbon nanotubes to map lymphatic endothelial cells for detecting cancer metastasis in sentinel lymph nodes. … With this technique it was demonstrated that the golden nanoparticles could be used to diagnose and treat the cancer at a cellular level.
