An army of nanoparticles in conjugation with magnetic field would be attacking the cancer cells in a process involving healing ovarian tumor. Researchers at Florida International University (FIU) have come up with an innovative solution of curing ovarian cancer via Magneto-electric Nanoparticles (MENs).
The FIU team confirmed that using MENs technique will facilitate Taxol, the chemotherapy drug, to completely wipe off the cells responsible for the growth of tumor that to without affecting the healthy ovarian cells unlike before.
This will be a huge breakthrough in therapeutic realm especially when we have witnessed the toxicity and severity of side effects post-chemotherapy in patients.
Although the approach of healing a particular location inside a body via nanoparticles has been in the industry since a decade but MENs through chemotherapy is a milestone that has never been reached before.
How does it work?
A nanoparticle is attached to an antibody – which (the antibody) has some attractive property for a tumor – to enter into the bloodstream to search its target. The technique involved is specific in the sense that the input (nanoparticle) is able to detect the difference between a cancer cell and healthy cell.
The ‘decision’ is made in terms of electrical properties of cells’ membranes. Generally, a magnetic nanoparticle (MN) can be controlled by a remote magnetic field but the MENs have their intrinsic electric fields controlled by the external magnetic field. This implies that MENs can work as localized magnetic-to-electric-field nano-converters hence have the ability of generating a specific electric field. With this new electric field, MENs can alter the membrane characteristics of the cancer cells and make them porous, a process which cannot be perform with healthy cells.
Interaction between the MENs and cancer cells makes MENs can act like a tumor imaging agents providing time-tailored drug release into tumors, thus, completely eradicating the malignant and problematic growth.
The Future
The research demonstrates the huge potential that Magneto-electric Nanoparticles have in providing significant disruption of biopolymers that were causing obstruction to drug molecules and preventing efficient drug delivery.
It is an important beginning to local diffusion of drugs. Researchers too envision that the technology can be “applied to other cancers including breast cancer and lung cancer”.
Source: IEEE Spectrum
