Cancer Treatment Advances Using Nanotechnology

The use of nanotechnology in cancer treatment offers some exciting possibilities, including the possibility of destroying cancer tumors with minimal damage to healthy tissue and organs.

Most efforts to improve cancer treatment through nanotechnology is at the research or development, stage; a few methods, however, have reached the pre-clinical or clinical trial stage. Note that these new methods are generally not ready for use by patients yet and the information on this website is not intended to recommend any treatment.

Cancer Treatments Under Development

One treatment involves targeted chemotherapy that delivers a tumor-killing agent called tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) to cancer tumors. TNF is attached to a gold nanoparticle along with Thiol-derivatized polyethylene glycol (PEG-THIOL), which hides the TNF bearing nanoparticle from the immune system. This allows the nanoparticle to flow through the blood stream without being attacked. For more details read the article at this link. The company developing this targeted chemotherapy method to deliver TNF and other chemotherapy drugs to cancer tumors is called CytImmune.

One heat therapy to destroy cancer tumors using nanoparticles is called AuroShell™. The AuroShell™ nanoparticles circulate through a patients bloodstream, exiting where the blood vessels are leaking at the site of cancer tumors. Once the nanoparticles accumulate at the tumor the AuroShell™ nanoparticles are used to concentrate the heat from infrared light to destroy cancer cells with minimal damage to surrounding healthy cells. For a good visual illustration of this process, click here. Nanospectra Biosciences has developed such a treatment using AuroShell™ that has been approved for a pilot trial with human patients.

Targeted heat therapy is being developed to destroy breast cancer tumors. In this method antibodies that are strongly attracted to proteins produced in one type of breast cancer cell are attached to nanotubes, causing the nanotubes to accumulate at the tumor. Infrared light from a laser is absorbed by the nanotubes and produces heat that incinerates the tumor. For more details read the article at this link.

X-ray therapy may be able to destroy cancer tumors using a nanoparticle called nbtxr3. The nbtxr3 nanoparticles, when activated by x-rays, generate electrons that cause the destruction of cancer tumors to which they have attached themselves. Click here for more details on this method. This is intended to be used in place of radiation therapy with much less damage to healthy tissue. Nanobiotix has released preclinical results for this technique.

An intriguing targeted chemotherapy method uses one nanoparticle to deliver the chemotherapy drug and a separate nanoparticle to guide the drug carrier to the tumor. First gold nanorods circulating through the bloodstream exit where the blood vessels are leaking at the site of cancer tumors. Once the nanorods accumulate at the tumor they are used to concentrate the heat from infrared light; heating up the tumor. This heat increases the level of a stress related protein on the surface of the tumor. The drug carrying nanoparticle (a liposome) is attached to amino acids that bind to this protein, so the increased level of protein at the tumor speeds up the accumulation of the chemotherapy drug carrying liposome at the tumor. For more details read the article at this link.

Delivery of short interfering RNAs (siRNA) is interesting because siRNA simply stops the cancer tumor from growing and there is the potential to tailor synthetic siRNA to the version of cancer in a individual patient. For more details read the article at this link.

Magnetic nanoparticles that attach to cancer cells in the blood stream may allow the cancer cells to be removed before they establish new tumors. For more details read the article at this link.

Another method that targets individual cancer cells inserts gold nanoparticles into the cells, then shines a laser on the nanoparticles. The heat explodes the cancer cells. For more details read the article at this link.

Using gold nanoparticles to deliver platinum to cancer tumors may reduce the side effects of platinum cancer therapy. The key is that the toxicity level of platinum depends upon the molecule it is bonded to (for the tech types the toxicity depends upon the oxidation state of the platinum). So the researchers chose a platinum containing molecule that has low toxicity to attach to the gold nanoparticles. When the platinum bearing nanoparticle reaches a cancer tumor it encounters an acidic solution which changes the platinum to it's toxic state, in which it can kill cancer cells. For more details read the article at this link.

Iron oxide nanoparticles can be used to improve MRI images of cancer tumors. The nanoparticle is coated with a peptide that binds to a cancer tumor. Once the nanoparticles are attached to the tumor, the magnetic property of the iron oxide enhances the images from the Magnetic Resonance Imagining scan.

Sensors based upon nanoparticles or nanowires can detect proteins related to specific types of cancer cells in blood samples. This could allow early detection of cancer. T2 Biosystems uses superparamagnetic nanoparticles that bind to the cancer indicating protein and cluster together. These clusters provide a magnetic resonance signal indicating the presence of the cancer related protein.

Cancer Treatments using Nanotechnology: Company Directory

Company	Product
CytImmune	Gold nanoparticles for targeted delivery of drugs to tumors
NanoBioMagnetics	Magnetically responsive nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery and other applications
Nanobiotix	Nanoparticles that target tumor cells, when irradiated by xrays the nanoparticles generate electrons which cause localized destruction of the tumor cells.
Nanospectra	AuroShell particles (nanoshells) for thermal destruction of cancer tissue
Nanosphere	Diagnostic testing using gold nanoparticles to detect low levels of proteins indicating particular diseases
Oxonica	Diagnostic testing using gold nanoparticles (biomarkers)
T2 Biosystems	Diagnostic testing using magnetic nanoparticles
MagArray	Diagnostic testing using magnetic nanoparticles

Nanotechnology in Cancer Treatment: Resources

National Cancer Institute Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer; This alliance includes a Nanotechnology Characterization Lab as well as eight Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is funding research at eight Nanomedicine Development Centers.