Carbon nanotubes could reduce side effects from cancer treatment.

MIT Technology Review reports that carbon nanotubes could reduce the side effects of cancer drugs and mice tests show they are twice as effective at reducing tumor size. The researchers estimate that drug uptake within a tumor was 10 times higher for nanotube delivery than for Taxol. This uptake means that smaller doses could be used to achieve the same effects as other treatments, reducing side effects.

Research from Stanford University has shown that carbon nanotubes loaded with anticancer drugs can target tumor cells while steering clear of healthy tissue.

The nanotubes--on average 100 nanometers long and a few nanometers wide--pass easily through the leaky walls of tumor blood vessels but do not get into healthy blood vessels. So the researchers realized that drugs attached to the nanotubes could be carried inside tumors without harming normal tissue.

To make working nano-drug transporters, the researchers coated the nanotubes with a molecule called polyethylene glycol (PEG), which has three branches on one end, then attached molecules of the anticancer drug paclitaxel to each branch. Each of the 100-nanometer-long nanotubes carried about 150 drug molecules in total. "Think of a carbon nanotube as a boat," says Steve Lippard, a chemistry professor at MIT, who was not involved in the research. "The advantage of the branched PEG is that you can have multiple passengers at each seat." Dai adds that the branched PEG is stable in the bloodstream for a relatively long time, giving the nanotubes more time to find and treat a tumor before leaving the body.

The drug-delivery technique was tested in mice that had been injected with breast cancer cells. Once the tumors grew to a specific size, the researchers administered a dose of the drug-laden nanotubes every six days. They gave another group of mice similar doses of different forms of paclitaxel, including the clinical drug Taxol, and left some untreated. After 22 days, they found that the tumors treated by nanotube delivery were less than half the size of the tumors treated by the second most effective treatment, Taxol.

Nanobialys can carry drugs to tumors or plaques

Ultra-miniature bialy-shaped particles — called nanobialys because they resemble tiny versions of the flat, onion-topped rolls popular in New York City — could soon be carrying medicinal compounds through patients' bloodstreams to tumors or atherosclerotic plaques.

The nanobialys answered a need for an alternative to the research group's gadolinium-containing nanoparticles, which were created for their high visibility in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

Gadolinium is a common contrast agent for MRI scans, but recent studies have shown that it can be harmful to some patients with severe kidney disease.

"The nanobialys contain manganese instead of gadolinium," says first author Dipanjan Pan, Ph.D., research instructor in medicine in the Cardiovascular Division. "Manganese is an element found naturally in the body. In addition, the manganese in the nanobialys is tied up so it stays with the particles, making them very safe."

A bialy is a Polish roll like a bagel without a hole that can be made with different toppings.

Nanoworms (magnetic iron oxide particles with polymer coating) target cancer tumors

Segmented "nanoworms" composed of magnetic iron oxide and coated with a polymer are able to find and attach to tumors. Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed nanometer-sized “nanoworms” that can cruise through the bloodstream without significant interference from the body’s immune defense system and—like tiny anti-cancer missiles—home in on tumors. They are superparamagnetic and show up very well on MRIs and can circulate in the body for hours since they do not trigger the immune system.

Using nanoworms, doctors should eventually be able to target and reveal the location of developing tumors that are too small to detect by conventional methods. Carrying payloads targeted to specific features on tumors, these microscopic vehicles could also one day provide the means to more effectively deliver toxic anti-cancer drugs to these tumors in high concentrations without negatively impacting other parts of the body.

“Most nanoparticles are recognized by the body's protective mechanisms, which capture and remove them from the bloodstream within a few minutes,” said Michael Sailor, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego who headed the research team. “The reason these worms work so well is due to a combination of their shape and to a polymer coating on their surfaces that allows the nanoworms to evade these natural elimination processes. As a result, our nanoworms can circulate in the body of a mouse for many hours.”

The scientists constructed their nanoworms from spherical iron oxide nanoparticles that join together, like segments of an earthworm, to produce tiny gummy worm-like structures about 30 nanometers long—or about 3 million times smaller than an earthworm. Their iron-oxide composition allows the nanoworms to show up brightly in diagnostic devices, specifically the MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, machines that are used to find tumors.

“The iron oxide used in the nanoworms has a property of superparamagnetism, which makes them show up very brightly in MRI,” said Sailor. “The magnetism of the individual iron oxide segments, typically eight per nanoworm, combine to provide a much larger signal than can be observed if the segments are separated. This translates to a better ability to see smaller tumors, hopefully enabling physicians to make their diagnosis of cancer at earlier stages of development.”

The researchers are now working on developing ways to attach drugs to the nanoworms and chemically treating their exteriors with specific chemical “zip codes,” that will allow them to be delivered to specific tumors, organs and other sites in the body.

“We are now using nanoworms to construct the next generation of smart tumor-targeting nanodevices,” said Ruoslahti. We hope that these devices will improve the diagnostic imaging of cancer and allow pinpoint targeting of treatments into cancerous tumors.”

Folded up micrometer-scale 'voxels' for drug delivery

After starting the folds using magnetic forces, the structure is sealed using capillary action.


USC researchers have made pyramid structures that are 40 micrometers on each side

Part one is the creation of flat patterns, origami, of exactly the fold up shapes familiar to kindergarten children making paper pyramids, cubes or other solids, except that these are as small 40 micrometers (µm) on a side. (1 inch = 25,400 µm)

Instead of paper, the USC researchers created the patterns in polysilicon sitting on top of a thin film of gold, using a well-established commercial silicon wafer process called PolyMUMPs. The next step was clearing the polysilicon off the hinge areas by etching.

When the blanks were later electrocoated with permalloy to make them magnetic, the photomask used left hinge areas uncoated, to make sure they were the places that folded.

Then the folding had to be accomplished. First the researchers bent the hinges by application of magnetic force to the permalloy. Water pressure and capillary forces generated by submerging the tiny blanks in water, and drying them off did the final folding into shape.

The experiments spend considerable time comparing various methods of controlling the closure effects of water drying with simple flaps designed to close over each other to form "envelops," the directing water from different directions sequence the closing. Varying the time of trying could produce tighter seams.

Nanodiamonds 100 times cheaper, used to track cells in the body and deliver chemotherapy drugs

Taiwanese scientists have found a way to slash the cost of making the diamond chips by around 100 times.

Nanodiamond's fluorescent properties could be used to track cells moving through the body. And, last year, researchers showed they could safely deliver chemotherapy drugs.

Cheaper alternatives to nanodiamonds, such as fluorescent dyes or small chunks of semiconductor known as quantum dots, are in use already. The diamonds, though, are less prone to blinking on and off than fluorescent dyes, and are not toxic to cells, unlike quantum dots.

FNDs are usually made by firing a high-energy electron beam into commercially available diamond powder and heating it up to 800 °C. Huan-Cheng Chang and colleagues at Academia Sinica in Taipei shoot a much less intense, and hence cheaper, beam of helium ions at diamond powder to make FNDs of the same quality.

Chang's team could track the movement of a single fluorescent nanodiamond within a cell for over 3 minutes.

The researchers have also explored other applications for their cheap diamonds, such as using them to monitor stem cells in developing tissue, or to carry drugs into cells.

"In particular, we have demonstrated that FNDs are able to interact with plasmid DNA and to deliver different genes into cultured human cells," Chang told New Scientist. That could be used for gene therapy, or DNA vaccines.

Chang and his colleagues have set up a commercial operation selling their nanodiamonds and are working on making them even smaller and to fluoresce more brightly.

The cheaper diamond chips need to be made smaller, though, if they are to perform well as markers to reveal the inner workings of cells, he adds.

Tiny Magnets for more effective Gene Therapy targeting for cancer, arthritis, heart disease and more

The technique involves inserting nanomagnets into monocytes - a type of white blood cell used to carry gene therapy - and injecting the cells into the bloodstream. The researchers then placed a small magnet over the tumour to create a magnetic field and found that this attracted many more monocytes into the tumour.

This new technique could also be used to help deliver therapeutic genes in other diseases like arthritic joints or ischemic heart tissue.

Though the concept of magnetic targeting for drug and gene delivery has been around for decades, major technical hurdles have prevented its translation into a clinical therapy. By harnessing and enhancing the monocytes' innate targeting abilities, this technique offers great potential to overcome some of these barriers and bring the technology closer to the clinic.

The team are now looking at how effective magnetic targeting is at delivering a variety of different cancer-fighting genes, including ones which could stop the spread of tumours to other parts of the body.

Nanoparticle enabled cooking of cancer tumors moving to clinical trials in about three year

Kanzius RF therapy attaches microscopic nanoparticles to cancer cells and then "cooks" tumors inside the body with harmless radio waves could be in clinical trials as early as 3 years. The treatment has been 100% effective in animal trials.