Progress Achieved Towards Developing Nanomedicines for Brain Cancer

In an advance toward better treatments for the most lethal form of brain cancer, scientists have developed the first nanoparticles that seek out and destroy brain cancer cells without injuring neighboring healthy cells.

The study was published in the September 9, 2009, issue of the journal Nano Letters. In the article, Dr. Elena Rozhkova and colleagues from the Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne U.S. National Laboratory (Argonne, IL, USA) noted the urgent need for new ways to treat a malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), which often causes death within months of diagnosis. Recent studies show that titanium dioxide nanoparticles, a type of light-sensitive material widely used in sunscreens, cosmetics, and wastewater treatment, can destroy some cancer cells when the chemical is exposed to ultraviolet light. However, scientists have had difficulty getting nanoparticles, each approximately 1/50,000th the width of a human hair, to target and enter cancer cells while avoiding healthy cells.

The scientists' solution involves chemically linked titanium dioxide nanoparticles to an antibody that recognizes and attaches to GMB cells. When they exposed cultured human GMB cells to these so-called "nanobio hybrids," the nanoparticles destroyed up to 80% of the brain cancer cells after five minutes of exposure to focused white light. The results suggest that these nanoparticles could become a promising part of brain cancer therapy, when used during surgery, according to the researchers.

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Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne U.S. National Laboratory