Search for newer technology has always fascinated researchers. Nano technology is a multidisciplinary field, which recently has emerged as one of the most propitious field in cancer treatment. Nano technology is definitely a medical boon for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer disease. It supports and expands the scientific advances in genomic and proteomics and builds on our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of cancer and its treatment. The various nanotechnological approaches in cancer treatment have been encompassed in the current article. One of them includes localized delivery of heat and the localized imaging of biological materials through nanoparticles. The delivery may be in vitro or in vivo and is useful for the localized treatment of cancer and disorders involving over proliferation of tissue. Other approach relates to a novel process of manufacture of nanoparticles of substantially water insoluble materials from emulsions. These emulsions have the ability to form a single liquid phase upon dilution of the external phase, instantly producing dispersible solid nanoparticles. The formed nanoparticles can be used in a wide range of therapeutic treatments of cancer. Additional approach comprises of solid tumors having an acidic extra cellular environment and an altered pH gradient across their cell compartments. Nanoparticles responsive to the pH gradients are promising for cancer drug delivery. Such pH-responsive nanoparticles consist of a corona and a core, one or both of which respond to the external pH to change their soluble/insoluble or charge states, thereby they have therapeutic advantages over the conventional pH-insensitive counterparts. An alternative advancement discloses a method/system utilizing interaction of electromagnetic pulses or ultrasonic radiation with nano- and micro particles for enhancement of drug delivery in solid tumors. These particles can be attached to antibodies directed against antigens in tumor vasculature and selectively delivered to tumor blood vessel wall. A widespread understanding of these new technologies can provide essential breakthroughs in the fight against cancer.
Tiny man-made nanoparticles have been used to successfully smuggle a powerful cancer drug into tumor cells leaving healthy cells unharmed. When tested in mice, the Nan structure-based therapy was 10 times as effective at delaying tumor growth and far less toxic than the drug given alone. Researchers believe the therapy could transform many cancers from killer into chronic, treatable diseases.4,5 The major goals in designing nanoparticles as a delivery system are to control particle size, surface properties and release of pharmacologically active agents in order to achieve the site-specific action of the drug at the therapeutically optimal rate and dose regimen. Though liposome have been used as potential carriers with unique advantages including protecting drugs from degradation, targeting to site of action and reduction toxicity or side effects, their applications are limited due to inherent problems such as low encapsulation efficiency, rapid leakage of water-soluble drug in the presence of blood components and poor storage stability. On the other hand, polymeric nanoparticles offer some specific advantages over liposome. For instance, they help to increase the stability of drugs/proteins and possess useful controlled release properties. The purpose of the chemotherapy and radiation is to kill the tumor cells as these cells are more susceptible to the actions of these drugs and methods because of their growth at a much faster rate than healthy cells, at least in adults. Research efforts to improve chemotherapy over the past 25 years have led to an improvement in patient survival but there is still a need for improvement.6, 7 Current research areas include development of carriers to allow alternative dosing routes, new therapeutic targets such as blood vessels fueling tumor growth and targeted therapeutics that are more specific in their activity. Several nano biotechnologies mostly based on nanoparticles, have been used to facilitate drug delivery in cancer. The magic of nanoparticles mesmerizes everyone because of their multifunctional character and they have given us hope for the recovery from this disease. Although we are practicing better drug delivery paths into the body, we ultimately seek more accurate protocols to eradicate cancer from our society. This review will primarily address new methods for delivering drugs, both old and new, with a focus on nano particle formulations and ones that specifically target tumors.
Watch the video related to nanoparticles
Magnetisable particle and an AIDS virus antibody are bind together because of their positive and negative charges. If the virus is present, the antibody recognises and sticks to it… what a wide variety of roles nanoparticles can play, particularly in the biomedical field!!!!
Help answer the question about nanoparticles
What is isoelectric point of Nanoparticles?Please help me.
I would like to know the isoelectric point of metal nanoparticles (such as gold, silver etc.).
Thankyou verymuch for any suggestion
Thankz lucky611; nanoparticles are so tiny and can not see in optical microscope but we can see them in TEM (transmission electron microscope).
About Author
Nitesh S Chauhan, M.Pharm., (Ph.D) Faculty of Pharmacy Editor in Chief International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (IJPS) R R College of Pharmacy #67, R R Layout, Chikkabanavara Hesarghatta Main Road, Bangalore-560090 Tel: +918028391555, fax: +918028396210 Mob: +919986431757
they are any particles with sizes down in the range of usually 100nm or less, all the way down to just a few nanometers. One thing about them is they have very high surface area per gram compared to larger particles of the same substance, so they are good for catalysis and surface reactions. Also, when they get to extremely small sizes, some properties, like optical emission and absorption, change very drastically compared to bulk sample due to quantum effects. The properties can often be fine tuned by altering the size of the particles
Now will MagForce allow people with terminal cancer allow be volunteers for testing?
I hear alot about various new cancer treatments but little on it for public use. Also years of red tape delays.
I’m skeptical on when the public will have acess to these treatments.
I don't know if this would work, but it would be cool it it did.
One important use being made of nanoparticles is in cancer research.
The particles are absorbed into cancer cells, and then the cells become more visable to scans or quickly killed by certain forms of radiation than the cells around them.
http://nano.cancer.gov/resource_center/nanotech_nanoparticles.asp
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2008/04/kanzius_therapy
If you can get iron based nanoparticles that are magnetic, they would probably be absorbed by a flower if they were mixed into the water in a flower vase. This could be demonstrated by using a strong magnet on the flower; it should become magnetic!
That would illustrate the principle.
I have no experience in this, so it could fail completely.
Good luck!
ouch, how are they going to infect the nanostuff into the HARD tumour in the first place….
Dont want to think about it…
even ones is enough…
I’m currently doing with nanomagnetic research project, this video has profoundly give me an insight and lot of information. Thanks for the post
One problem with cancer is that it isn’t one disease, but many. Is this effective against all or most of them?
this treatment doesnt effect areas that the fluid isnt injected in … in case of radiation or chemotherapy many cells outside the tumor are effected
surgery always carries risks
especially on the brain
hmmmmmmmmm good question
Yes it is same like molecular mass, nanoparticles is description of the size not the compound itself
something that is sooo tiny you cant even see in a microscope.
. I guess you're showing off ! You know in a controlled experiment, there should be minimal difference, as partially explained in the web site below:
"…Although the TRM furnace is equipped for maintaining a controlled atmosphere and this feature was used in this study, the process requires careful attention and is somewhat of a nuisance. Since I did not need to exceed the Curie temperature by much in these experiments, I could not rely on using equilibrium atmospheres to prevent sample oxidation since equilibration is unlikely to occur at such low temperatures.
I tried to eliminating chemical change in the samples during the magnetic experiments by isolating the samples from the atmosphere. The method I chose was to seal the samples in evacuated quartz tubes to minimize the probability of chemical alteration and to provide self-buffering.
The samples were then thermally cycled from room temperature to beyond their Curie temperature until their magnetic properties stabilized. " ………..
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I would think that nanoparticals are the subelements (microcosms) of nanomaterials…. meaning they are the subunits which comprise the overall nanomaterial (for example with nanotubes, the nanoparticles are the most easily divisible units of the same properties which combine in repeated organization to form the overall structure)… or a nanomaterial could refer to any material which is designed at the nano size level.
if this works it would be effective against all types of cancer.
a solution of nanoparticles is a colloid. the variation of color is due to different solutions containing varying particle sizes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyndall_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_gold
How does it destroy only the cancer cells?
I don’t claim to be a doctor, but it seems that the nano particles are programmed to recognize the cancerous cells. Then it’s just a matter of making them move back and forth destroying the cells. I wonder though what happens if they go to the wrong cells, or if there are leftovers in there. Where do they go?
It’s awsome to see that there are these kinds of things in the works. The potential here is huge, and very exciting.
cancerous cells may perhaps have different absorption ability than normal cells thus only cancerous cells absorbs the nanoparticles. Not sure though. Just a thought.
I had not heard of that info before.
I would advise you to do what I did – when you wonder about the scientific value of some data you found, run it through the NCBI database. It is the clearinghouse for scientific data.
I queried "platinum nanoparticles cancer" and found 5 publications. It seems there are Phase I studies about platinum nanoparticles, the main advantage seems to be the drug delivery right to the tumor. However, there does NOT seem any data so far that would support any overwhelming optimism, even if the alternative community sees this differently.
Read some of the article summaries yourself, they're quite interesting.