Chemists at UC San Diego have recently been working a Nano-cocktail of drugs that target tumors, and kills them. This has been a problem before because the body of the injected subject has mononuclear phagocytes that stop the nanomaterials. This is because mononuclear phagocytes are immune cells that can identify the nanomaterials as foreign invaders, and pulls the nanomaterials out of the blood stream; which in turns stops the nanomaterials from reaching the tumors.
Previously, tests were being done with these nanomaterials, but not in combination. Cocktails of multiple drugs is commonly used in the medical world, and is now being used to create the nano-cocktail. A graduate student at MIT discussed how two nanomaterials would be used in this cocktail. The first acts as an agent that finds and covers the tumors in gold particles that heat up the tumor. The second nanomaterial acts like a "soldier" as it is attracted to the heated tumors, and proceeds to attack them. The first nanomaterial also has "nanostrings" that show up on x-rays so that doctors can find the tumors before they even inject the second nanomaterial. This makes it so that the second nanomaterial can be injected into the body close to where the tumor is so that the mononuclear phagocytes will have less of a chance of extracting the nanomaterial.
Ryan
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100104143507.htm
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Did this article say what either of the two nanomaterials that make up this cocktail are?
ReplyDelete-Ethan
This is pretty cool, yet another advancement in cancer research. I just wonder, will this be finally effective, or will it be another futile attempt at trying to cure cancer for good?
ReplyDeleteI am curious what medicines make up the cockails, and how affective this cockail is. Has it been used in medical trials?
ReplyDelete-nate c
If this can become a surefire way to get rid of tumors then a gigantic breakthrough has been found.
ReplyDeleteDo we know what the nanococktails are made up of, and if they have been used in any clinical trials? Have there been any results?
ReplyDelete-Emma G
While more effective methods of fighting tumors are certainly always good to see, after all we've learned about cancer, something tells me that using genes and genetics like they did with breast cancer in the video we watched is the way to go.
ReplyDelete-hayesp
I am also interested in knowing if there have been any clinical trials on humans and if so what the results have been. I also wonder if this would be a more successful/beneficial tumor treatment then ones that already exist?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious how they were able to get it to target specific Cancer Cells effectively
ReplyDelete-Cyrus