Nanodiamonds Cancer Treatments

Though chemotherapy has proved effective in treating many types of cancers, there are cases in which is doesn’t. Even when chemotherapy cures a person of cancer, there are many painful side effects. A professor at the biomedical engineering Department of Northwestern University believes they have found a solution for drug delivery of stubborn cancers.

Dean Ho and his team of scientists and clinicians have studied a tiny carbon particle called a nanodiamond in hopes of treating cancer. In studies of mice, they used these nano-particles to deliver an abundant amount of chemotherapy and discovered that it significantly reduced the size of the tumors. In addition, the amount of chemotherapy drug used would normally be considered lethal, however using the nanodiamonds, the survival rates increased and there were no harmful effects on the tissues and organs studied.

The actually nanodiamonds are 2 to 8 nanometers in diameter and the surface allows many compounds to be attached to them, chemotherapy drugs being one of them.

Studies with one particular type of chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin, gave promising results. This drug is supposed to enhance sustained drug release. When this drug was bound to the nanodiamonds, the researchers found the drug stayed in circulation even longer than those treated with the drug alone. This is beneficial because with such a high retention rate, less of the drug could be used, furthermore reducing side effects. The nanodiamonds with drugs also proved to have no effect on the white blood cell count.

I chose this article because I am very interested in cancer research and developments in treating the deadly disease. I found this particular article interesting because though chemotherapy is helpful in many cases, the side effects can be unbearable. This particular drug could make increase survival rates all while decreasing the negative side effects of going through the treatment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110309141727.htm

Alicia Capps