Nanoparticles aim drugs directly at brain tumors
Shown above is a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan of a 62 year old man with a brain tumor. The irregular bright yellow and orange area in the lower left portion of the brain indicates the location of the tumor. (Image credit: National Cancer Institute)
Nanoparticles – manufactured particles on the scale of atoms and molecules – are being developed to deliver drugs directly to cancer cells in the brain.
Right now, this system has been tested only on mice. Clinical trials involving people could begin within three years.
In order for most cancer drugs to be effective in the brain, they have to be administered in large doses. These toxic drugs kill the cancerous cells, but they also destroy healthy cells surrounding the tumor. Using nanotechnology, James Connor at Penn State University has devised a way to deliver smaller doses of drugs that target just cancerous cells using what’s known as a “lipid–based nanoparticle.”
James Connor: It’s really just a fat cell and inside this fat cell it’s empty, just a membrane of lipids and we can fill it up with whatever drug or gene that we think is going to do the job on the tumor cells.
One of the big problems with brain tumors is that they often come back.
But Connor told Earth & Sky that once a cancer has gone into remission, small numbers of drug–delivering nanoparticles could be kept in the bloodstream as a kind of surveillance system to immediately attack cancer cells that may reappear.
Thank you to the National Science Foundation.
Our thanks to:
James Connor
Vice Chair and Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery
Penn State University
James Connor also said, “The advantage of our system is that we can put these drugs into these nanovesicles, these lyposomes. That way the drug is never seen by the blood and we can target these nanovesicles to the tumors in the brain. And so, the size of these nanovesicles allows them to pass through this blood brain barrier pretty much unimpeded. And then selectively targeting the tumor cells. So, there’s really three significant advantages to the approach we’re taking.
He added, “What’s nice about it that it’s potentially going to be a surveillance mechanism as well as attacking existing tumors. As you know, one of the big problems with brain tumors is that they come back and so, hopefully, what our mechanism will not only attack the existing tumor but with some type of maintance level of therapy we can keep these nanovesicles in the bloodstream at some concentration that we’re working on now to figure out which would be a surveillance and at any time the tumor would start to come back, these guys would be ready to attack that as well.”
NEW! Find related content with Sphere
Good luck to James Connor and his team.
What a blessing it will be when the cancer ‘problem’ can be removed.
I often wonder just how many chemicals and chemical compounds make up the human/animal body. Is there a number?
Regards
George
My 13 year old is being treated for a Glio Blastoma Multiforme Tumor . I would love to receive more info on this please? He was diagnosed April 29, 2006. He currently is on a two year cycle of tarceva which he takes daily. So far we are blessed to still have him with us….