Remotely Activated Nanoparticles Destroy Cancer

[Whoa182]

The technology and methods using nano-biotechnology is amazing. Many animal trials showing that tumors are literally destroyed and the animals 100% cured and live a normal long life after treatment. Nanotechnology will be the cure for cancer.

This is EXTREMELY promising research, and cancer should be totally controllable or curable in the VERY near future. It doesn't matter how the tumor changes expression or certain genes or tries to adapt... it can't. This method works because it relies on heat and light... Nanoparticles do NOT destroy healthy cells, but only cancer cells. Thus avoiding any nasty side effects!

So clever!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Remotely Activated Nanoparticles Destroy Cancer

http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17956

Targeted nanotech-based treatments will enter clinical trials in 2007.
By Kevin Bullis

The first in a new generation of nanotechnology-based cancer treatments will likely begin clinical trials in 2007, and if the promise of animal trials carries through to human trials, these treatments will transform cancer therapy. By replacing surgery and conventional chemotherapy with noninvasive treatments targeted at cancerous tumors, this nanotech approach could reduce or eliminate side effects by avoiding damage to healthy tissue. It could also make it possible to destroy tumors that are inoperable or won't respond to current treatment.

One of these new approaches places gold-coated nanoparticles, called nanoshells, inside tumors and then heats them with infrared light until the cancer cells die. Because the nanoparticles also scatter light, they could be used to image tumors as well. Mauro Ferrari, a leader in the field of nanomedicine and professor of bioengineering at the University of Texas Health Science Center, says this is "very exciting" technology.

"With chemotherapy," Ferrari says, "we carpet bomb the patient, hoping to hit the lesions, the little foci of disease. To be able to shine the light only where you want this thing to heat up is a great advantage."

Although several groups are now working on similar localized treatments, Naomi Halas and Jennifer West have led the way in this area, and their work is the farthest along. (See "Nano Weapons Join the Fight Against Cancer.") Nearly ten years ago, Halas, professor of chemistry and electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, developed a precise and reliable method for making nanoshells, which can be hollow spheres of gold or, in the case of the cancer treatment, gold-coated glass spheres. These spheres are small enough (about 100 nanometers in diameter) to slip through gaps in blood vessels that feed tumors. So as they circulate in the bloodstream, they gradually accumulate at tumor sites.

Halas tuned the nanoparticles to absorb specific wavelengths of light by changing the thickness of the glass and gold. For the cancer treatment, she selected infrared wavelengths that pass easily through biological tissues without causing damage. To destroy a nanoshell-infiltrated tumor, the tumor is illuminated with a laser, either through the skin or via an optical fiber for areas such as the lungs.

"We shine light through the skin, and in just a few minutes, the tumor is heated up," Halas says. "In the studies that were initially reported--and this has been repeated now more than 20 times in at least three different animal models--we have seen essentially 100 percent tumor remission." The tests also suggest the nanoshells are nontoxic. Halas says they are eliminated from the body through the liver over several weeks. The technology was developed at Rice in collaboration with Jennifer West, a professor of bioengineering. It has been licensed by Nanospectra Biosciences, a startup based in Houston, TX, that is beginning the process of getting FDA approval for clinical trials for treating head and neck cancer. In the future, the technology could be used for a wide variety of cancers.

"There is a potential for this to bring a profound change in cancer treatment," Halas says. "For the case of someone discovering a lump in their breast, this would mean that a very simple procedure could be performed that would induce remission." She says that "for many, many cases of cancer, rather than the lengthy chemotherapy or radiation therapy," an individual would have "one simple treatment and very little side effects."


Halas anticipates that approval for the method will come quickly, in part because the nanotechnology is not a drug but a device, for which the approval process is simpler. Also, she expects it will perform the same in humans as in animal models, "because heat and light work in exactly the same way whether you're in a pig, a dog, [or] a human being."

Since their initial experiments, the researchers have been further developing the technology. They've demonstrated the ability to coat the nanoshells with antibodies that latch on to breast-cancer cells, further improving the selectivity of the treatment. They've also attached molecules that make the nanoshells into pH sensors that would be useful for both imaging tumors and as an "optical biopsy" for identifying cancers, Halas says.

The clinical trials this year will not take advantage of these advances. But eventually the antibody targeting could make preventative cancer treatments possible. "If you have the genetic profile for prostate cancer occurring in your family, one could imagine treating extremely early stages, when you have something a millimeter or smaller which you could barely visualize," Halas says. "With antibody targeting and then illumination of that region, you could destroy those cells at a very early stage. You could have a treatment every five to ten years, and then you would be free of the disease." The nanotechnology could also be used to eradicate cancers that have spread too much to be removed by surgery.

While people will not be able to take advantage of these advances in the near future, Halas says that treatments based on the original design could be available in a couple of years. Ferrari cautions that most treatments do not make it through clinical trials, but, he says, "I'm hopeful that their clinical trials will yield great results."

[TheCaveman]

This is EXTREMELY promising research, and cancer should be totally controllable or curable in the VERY near future.

Is it safe to take up smoking now? Or take the door off of our microwave ovens? Are we free, at last, to live however we want?

[Citruskiss]

Very interesting Whoa - thanks for posting this.

Can't recall where I saw the article (likely in here somewhere on these forums) about how one can 'starve' tumours by not eating any sugar too. Do you remember that one?

My stepdaughter is a microbiologist - and I'm always sending interesting articles along to her. This is an entirely different field, but I like how the different sciences can come up with their various approaches.

[Whoa182]

Heres a quick video demonstration of nanotechnology, and its use on cancer. It shows how the nanoshells work also.

Quicktime version: http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_center/video_journey_qt-high.asp

Media player version: http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_center/video_journey_wmv-high.asp

[cs_carver]

Nanotechnology will be the cure for cancer.

Nanotechnology may also be a CAUSE of cancer, according to information I've seen. We have no idea of how the human body is going to react to particles of that size, against which we have no effective defense.


It doesn't matter how the tumor changes expression or certain genes or tries to adapt... it can't. This method works because it relies on heat and light... .

They said that about the latest generation of flea-control products--the fleas can't adapt because it disrupts their ability to breed!! Now even my vet is saying, "Yup, we're seeing resistant fleas..." All it takes is one with a tiny bit of less-than-complete response. Just like antibiotic resistant microbes.

What's to say there won't be cancer cells that aren't disrupted by heat and light? We already know there are creatures that can live in hot spots in the ocean...




Nanoparticles do NOT destroy healthy cells, but only cancer cells. Thus avoiding any nasty side effects!

You and your side effects. ANY cell death within the body is going to cause side effects. Excreting that dead cellular material is going to take some amount of abnormal body processes, and most of those are uncomfortable to one extent or another.

Ferrari cautions that most treatments do not make it through clinical trials, but, he says, "I'm hopeful that their clinical trials will yield great results."

How come you never notice these parts?

[Nancy LC]

I remember reading about the danger of nano particles to people that work around them, they're smaller than any hazard suits can really screen out.

I get the feeling nano technology might be Ice-9.

[Whoa182]

Nanotechnology may also be a CAUSE of cancer, according to information I've seen. We have no idea of how the human body is going to react to particles of that size, against which we have no effective defense.

Thats why nanotechnology is being researched... depending on the chemical properties or structure the nano particles will either be benign or not. But also understand that you breathe in plenty of nano particles everyday.

They said that about the latest generation of flea-control products--the fleas can't adapt because it disrupts their ability to breed!! Now even my vet is saying, "Yup, we're seeing resistant fleas..." All it takes is one with a tiny bit of less-than-complete response. Just like antibiotic resistant microbes.

They kill the cancerous cells by heating the gold nano particles to 131 degrees Fahrenheit... if the cell managed to withstand that, they can just make them much hotter. The light on the normal healthy cells will not do anything or heat them up at all.

You and your side effects. ANY cell death within the body is going to cause side effects. Excreting that dead cellular material is going to take some amount of abnormal body processes, and most of those are uncomfortable to one extent or another.

Here are some quotes from an article on sciencentral.com
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?language=english&type=24119&article_id=218392390&cat=3_all

They only attack cancer cells! not healthy! so you wouldn't get things like tiredness, hair loss and other symptoms associated with common cancer therapies today.

So far we have never seen any adverse reaction to nanoshells in animals," says West. "We've done a lot of testing at this point and all of the results to date look like they're very safe, non-toxic, and bio-compatible."

Halas says nanoshells would have virtually no side effects because they're not interacting with the organism. "They only are active once they're in place at the tumor site and once one shines light through the skin to the actual tumor site and heats that localized region," she says. "So we feel that is something might make a huge difference in terms of the invasiveness—not just the side effects but the overall lack of invasiveness of this sort of treatment. When nanoshells are directly injected into the bloodstream, the body doesn't recognize them. They're coated with specific molecules that essentially make them stealth particles, so they're not recognizable as a foreign object. Also…they're gold and gold is not recognized as a foreign substance by the human body. If we compare nanoshell-assisted cancer therapy to conventional cancer therapy for example, like chemotherapy, there's a very high likelihood that the type of side effects that people see in conventional therapies would be greatly reduced."

[Whoa182]

I remember reading about the danger of nano particles to people that work around them, they're smaller than any hazard suits can really screen out.

I get the feeling nano technology might be Ice-9.

Well I have some Nano masks to stop viral particles (bird flu) so equipment can be made, and has already been made for workers in the field.

Nanotech is to be a bigger revolution that the industrial revolution that took place... in fact, its going to be many times more important and bigger. The technology is already working itself into clothes, phones, electronic equipment, military equipment, medical uses, food industry... willl be a multi trillion dollar industry in the near future.

Not all nano particles are dangerous, as I said above in my other post.

BUT IN THE CASE OF CANCER TREATMENT

Doctors are using extremely toxic chemicals at the moment! -- Nanoparticles are sometimes being made to make these kinds of drugs less toxic, not more. Not only that, the cancer treatment may only need to be done once, a few minute treatment.

[Mutant]

They have cured cancer 1000X over in animals for years including methods that use tagging by antibodies. Yet when these technologies are transferred to people, the results have been disappointing. I wish them luck, but really, how is THIS TIME any different than the 1000 other press releases announcing the cure to cancer in the last 35 years?

[Whoa182]

I don't really have to add anything as it's all on the article. However, you can do the research yourself or get some books on nanotechnology.

"Halas anticipates that approval for the method will come quickly, in part because the nanotechnology is not a drug but a device, for which the approval process is simpler. Also, she expects it will perform the same in humans as in animal models, "because heat and light work in exactly the same way whether you're in a pig, a dog, [or] a human being."

The method being used indicates that toxicity is not a problem. Repeated therapy would be possible as there are virtually no side effects. Heat kills cells, whether its cancerous or normal, and these are more 'smart' or targeted . On the other hand, chemo is very toxic, cannot be tolerated over and over again. Decreases survival due to secondary causes of mortality than the cancer itself... kills all your healthy cells, including your immunity. These new generation of Nanotech treatments are said to be 100s or even thousands of times more effective than cancer therapies today.

[Whoa182]

Heres another example of nanotechnology. The chemo drug on its own never did too well, but using nanotech it enhanced its capability so much.

Single-Dose Drug-Loaded Dendrimer Cures Mice of Colon Cancer

http://www.physorg.com/news82653370.html

In a dramatic demonstration of the power of nanotechnology, a team of investigators has designed a nanoscale, polymeric drug delivery vehicle that when loaded with a widely used anticancer agent cures colon cancer in mice with a single dose.

The researchers, led by Francis Szoka, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and Jean Fréchet, Ph.D., of the University of California, Berkeley, published the results of these experiments in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. This current work represents a milestone in a concerted effort to design nearly every aspect of a nanoscale drug delivery vehicle in order to maximize the anticancer activity of the drug payload.

To create their drug delivery vehicle, the investigators used a highly branched polymer, known as a dendrimer, that naturally forms nanoparticles with myriad sites for drug loading. In this particular case, the researchers created what they call a bow-tie polyester dendrimer, whose molecular structure somewhat resembles a bow-tie with two discrete halves. Previous work by these investigators had already shown that the body readily degrades this dendrimer and that the dendrimer does not accumulate in the body. Earlier work had also shown that this dendrimer has superior pharmacokinetic properties if it has a mass larger than 40 kiloDaltons.

When tested in cultured colon tumor cells, the researchers found that the drug-dendrimer construct was considerably less toxic than free doxorubicin when they dosed the cells with equivalent amounts of doxorubicin. The researchers note that this somewhat surprising finding likely results from slower uptake by the tumor cells of the dendrimer, compared to free drug, and because once taken up by cells the drug is released slowly from the dendrimer.

However, when the researchers treated tumor-bearing mice with either free doxorubicin or the doxorubicin-dendrimer formulation, the dendrimer performed far better than free drug. After a single intravenous injection, every mouse treated with the dendrimer-drug construct survived until the end of the 60-day experiment and every mouse showed complete tumor regression. In contrast, none of the mice treated with only doxorubicin survived, which an average survival time of only 24 days. The researchers also noted that the mice treated with the dendrimer formulation experienced fewer adverse side-effects than did those treated with either free drug or a clinically approved liposomal formulation of doxorubicin that the researchers also tested for the sake of comparison. The liposomal formulation produced a 90 percent cure rate over the 60-day experiment.

This work is detailed in a paper titled, “A single dose of doxorubicin-functionalized bow-tie dendrimer cures mice bearing C-26 colon carcinomas.” An abstract of this paper is available through
On one half of the dendrimer, the researchers attached a second polymer, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), in order to make the dendrimer water soluble. Again, earlier work had provided details on the optimal number of PEG molecules to attach to the dendrimer in order to maximize its lifetime in the body. Next, the investigators attached the anticancer drug doxorubicin to the other half of the dendrimer using a chemical linkage designed to break when exposed to acidic conditions. Not coincidentally, the inside of tumor cells is acidic, while the bloodstream has a neutral pH. Results presented in this paper show that the resulting drug-dendrimer formulation releases virtually all of its drug within 48 hours in acidic conditions but less than 10 percent of its payload at neutral pH.

[Micha2]

Very interesting articles, thank you very much.

I have just had drastic surgery to remove a large malignant tumour from my stomach. Also lost my left kidney and left colon. My type of cancer is very rare and doesn't respond to chemo, radiotherapy doesn't work well either.

Although they got it all out, it does often recur, so for the rest of my life I will have to face more drastic surgery to keep me going and I would try anything that would help me.

I so hope that this is going to work in humans. Maybe it would even work for me...

Thanks again

Michaela

[Whoa182]

Another example of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology could offer an alternative to brain surgery

http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=1240.php
January 11, 2007

Nanotechnology could offer an alternative to brain surgery
(Nanowerk News) If you had brain tumor, would you rather receive your medicine through an injection in the arm or have a hole drilled in your skull? Even if you opted for the 'hole-in-the-skull' method, brain cancers are often inoperable due to their location within critical brain regions or because they are too small to detect. Nanotechnology offers a vision for a 'smart' drug approach to fighting tumors: the ability of nanoparticles to locate cancer cells and destroy them with single-cell precision. One of the most important applications for such nanoparticulate drug delivery could be the delivery of the drug payload into the brain. However, crossing the brains protective shield, the blood-brain barrier, is a considerable challenge. Novel targeted nanoparticulate drug delivery systems that are able to cross this barrier bring us closer to this vision of brain cancer destroying drugs.
A tight seal of endothelial cells lines the blood vessels in the brain and acts as a barrier to protect its cells. This is known as the blood-brain barrier (BBB). BBB strictly limits transport into the brain through both physical (tight junctions) and metabolic (enzymes) barriers and keeps most substances, such as chemicals and large biomolecules, out of the brain.
The challenge in treating most brain disorders is overcoming the difficulty of delivering therapeutic agents to specific regions of the brain by crossing the BBB. The problem is the BBB does not differentiate what it keeps out. With very few exceptions, only nonionic and low molecular weight molecules soluble in fat clear the BBB. For instance, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine and antidepressants meet these criteria. However, large molecules needed to deliver drugs cannot cross it.
"The delivery of peptides into the brain is a challenge that is not adressed with classical pharmaceutical formulations, since the blood brain barrier doesn't allow the easy diffusion of such molecules." Dr. Patrick Couvreur explained to Nanowerk.
Couvreur, the director of the Center for Pharamceutical Studies at the Université Paris Sud, together with an international group of researchers, describes novel nanoparticles that are able to transport drugs into the brain ("Development and Brain Delivery of Chitosan-PEG Nanoparticles Functionalized with the Monoclonal Antibody OX26").
The development of carrier nanoparticles able to penetrate the BBB, as done by this research group, is an important step towards detection and therapeutic treatment of diseases in the brain. BBB investigation is an ever growing and dynamic field studied by pharmacologists, neuroscientists, pathologists, physiologists, and clinical practitioners.
"The chitosan-based immuno-nanoparticles we have developed" says Couvreur "allow transport across the BBB by combining two factors: 1) the ability of cationic (with a full positive charge) chitosan to interact with the negative charges of the brain endothelium and 2) the affinity of the monoclonal antibody OX26 for the transferrin receptor."

he researchers hypothized that transferrin receptor (TfR), which is highly concentrated in the BBB, may trigger receptor-mediated transport across the BBB. Transferrin itself is limited as a brain drug transport vector since the transferrin receptors are almost saturated under physiologic conditions. However, the antibodies that bind to TfR have been shown to selectively target BBB endothelium due to the high levels of TfR expressed by these cells. Therefore, these antibodies are potential carriers for the delivery of therapeutic agents to the central nervous systems. In particular, a mouse monoclonal antibody, OX26, with a high abundance of transferrin receptors at the brain microvascular endothelium has been detected and was used in the experiments.
Consequently, the researchers designed chitosan (CS) nanospheres conjugated with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) bearing the OX26 monoclonal antibody. The nanoparticles were injected intravenously to mice. The results showed that an important amount of nanoparticles were located in the brain.
Raoul Kopelman and his group at the University of Michigan designed nanoparticles they dubbed Probes Encapsulated by Biologically Localized Embedding (PEBBLEs) to carry a variety of agents on their surface, each with a unique function. The particles consist of an iron oxide core that serves as an MRI contrast agent. Attached to them are copies of a cancer-targeting peptide called F3, as well as a light-absorbing compound called photofrin that kills cells when hit with red light. When Kopelman’s team used their PEBBLEs to treat rats previously injected with cancer cells inside their brains they saw very clear results: A single IV injection of a targeted therapeutic nanoparticle dose, coupled with a single 5 min photodynamic therapy treatment, leads not only to an increase in the rat survival rate but accomplishes complete tumor remission.

The targeted treatments using nanoparticles may offer a number of advantages, not only over surgery but also over traditional chemotherapy. In chemotherapy, the drugs indiscrimenately permeate cells throughout the body to damage their DNA and prevent rapid growth, and are only moderately more toxic to cancer cells over normal cells. Nanoparticulate drug delivery, on the other hand, is highly localized to the cancer target, and does no or very little damage to surrounding healthy tissue.