‘Nanobubbles’ plus chemotherapy equals single-cell cancer targeting (pancreas, treatment, tumors)

[Brian.Pearson]

HOUSTON — (April 9, 2012) — Using light-harvesting nanoparticles to convert laser energy into “plasmonic nanobubbles,” researchers at Rice University, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) are developing new methods to inject drugs and genetic payloads directly into cancer cells. In tests on drug-resistant cancer cells, the researchers found that delivering chemotherapy drugs with nanobubbles was up to 30 times more deadly to cancer cells than traditional drug treatment and required less than one-tenth the clinical dose.

[Six Foot Three]

I'm kinda surprised that we aren't hearing more about nano medicine as much as i've been reading about it going back to around the early 2000's.

[Brian.Pearson]

Have a few articles but I've not being posted them all.

[fibonacci]

Meh, I'm still skeptical of the whole death to cancer cell approach via a drug or gene therapy. This approach fails to see the even bigger picture, that cancer is not just unregulated growth, but a malfunction of the cellular system on a developmental level.

For example--why can you turn normal tissue cancerous by disrupting the extracellular matrix alone? The primary cause of inducing cancer in such experiments has nothing to do with say a mutated gene, but is purely mechanical in nature. Also, experiments conducted 35 years ago showed that if you mix cancer cells with embryonic mesenchymal stem cells, you can actually revert cancer cells back to normal cells. Quite interesting. What is it about the architecture of developing embryonic tissue that can revert cancer cells? The mechanobiological approach to cancer was kicked to the curb once people started to become fixated on molecular biology and specific genes in order to create therapies with single targets. Such a reductionist approach is probably why cancer therapies still stink. There's definitely something happening on a higher level than just one, two, or even 3 malfunctioning signaling pathways that cause cancer and allow it to proliferate. What's the role of extracellular matrix degradation? We know it plays a central role, so why are we spending so much effort on drug research rather than trying to build biomimetic materials of embryologic tissue to possibly revert cancer cells back to normal?

[Brian.Pearson]

I think the only way to take care of cancers or tumors is to detect them. There is a cancer detector that was developed in Canada that looks good.

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Two years ago, in experiments with mice, researchers showed that they could wipe out a cell's developmental "memory" by inserting just four genes. Once returned to its pristine, embryonic state, the cell could then be coaxed to become an altogether different type of cell.


This year, scientists built on this work with spectacular results. Two research teams took cells from patients suffering from a variety of diseases and reprogrammed them into stem cells. Many of these diseases are difficult or impossible to study with animal models, making the need for human cell lines to study even more acute.


The transformed cells grow and divide in the laboratory, unlike most adult cells, which don't survive in culture conditions. The cells could then be induced to assume new identities, including those cell types most affected by the diseases afflicting the patients who had donated the initial cells.

A third research team skipped the embryonic state altogether and, working with mouse cells, turned one type of mature pancreas cells, called exocrine cells, directly into another type, called beta cells.


The new cell lines will be major tools for understanding how diseases arise and develop, and they may also prove useful in screens for potential drugs. Eventually, if scientists can master cellular reprogramming so that it's more finely controlled, efficient and safe, patients may someday be treated with healthy versions of their own cells.

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I'm optimistic that we'll beat cancer.

[Brian.Pearson]

STANFORD, Calif. — Like special-forces troops laser-tagging targets for a bomber pilot, tiny particles that can be imaged three different ways at once have enabled Stanford University School of Medicine scientists to remove brain tumors from mice with unprecedented accuracy.