'Silver Bullets' for Cancer Cells

Scientists in St. Louis are currently in the process of developing a 'silver bullet' for cancer. The term silver bullet comes from mythological stories, in which supernatural creatures were believed to only be killed by silver bullets. In this case, scientists are using photothermal methods in order to treat stubborn cancers. Specifically, the scientists are using gold nanocages. Nanocages are gold nanoparticles which are created by the reaction between silver nanoparticles and chloroauric acid. These special particles are biocompatible. These particles are special because when used in cancer cells, they can be injected into the body and they specifically will gather in locations which contain tumors. After the nanocages accumlate in the correct locations, a laser is shined at this location. The laser will kill some of the tumor cells in the vicinity. However, when the nanocages are exposed to this laser, they will absorb a lot of the heat, and through a reaction with the laser beam will convert light energy to heat energy, and this will warm up the area in which there is a tumor and kill many tumor cells. In the early trials, the scientists used a low levels of the laser treatment, but the results were very promising. In order to obtain the maximum absorption, the nanocages are configured to an optimum wavelength, which in this case was 800 nanometers. At this wavelength, the light is able to pentrate several inches into the body, which enables the treatment of many types of tumors. When this treatment was tested on rats, the proteins which help enable the tumor cells to function begin to denature at high temperature (42 degrees Celsius). This was verified by CT scans, which show the activity of tumor cells in the treated regions is much fainter than control subjects. Overall, this treatment is interesting because it is a much more non invasive method than many of the current methods of cancer treatment. There is also a much lower risk of side effects such as those from chemotherapy. I found this article interesting because I would like to focus my future research on cancer related topics, including the development of more non invasive methods. I think the continued improvement of the nanocage method will be interesting to see over the next few years.

Source:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100312164701.htm