Source: news.softpedia.com/
Author: Tudor Vieru

In a new approach to fighting cancer cells, or cells ridden by several other types of diseases as well, researchers managed to combine the powers of lasers and nanoparticles most efficiently. The method relies on using short bursts of laser light to produce small explosions from gold particles that have been placed inside the targeted cells beforehand. The blasts, which cause no ill-effects to surrounding cells, are highly capable of dismembering the cancerous ones, acting like a “jackhammer” on their targets, and pounding relentlessly, LiveScience reports.

Basically, the active elements in this therapy are nanobubbles, which form as the gold particles are subjected to intense, but short, laser pulses. The science group, which is based at the Rice University, was able to determine that the intensity of the lasers could be tuned in two ways, resulting in two different results. The end result could be either clear, bright and small bubbles, that were harmless, or larger explosions that took place inside the cell, which dismembered it.

“Single-cell targeting is one of the most touted advantages of nanomedicine, and our approach delivers on that promise with a localized effect inside an individual cell. The idea is to spot and treat unhealthy cells early, before a disease progresses to the point of making people extremely ill,” says RU physicist Dmitri Lapotko. He was also the author of a new study detailing the method, which appears online, in the January 25 issue of the respected scientific journal Nanotechnology. “The bubbles work like a jackhammer,” the expert adds.

Previous investigations had focused on using a similar approach for blasting a way through clogged arteries. The experience gained in that research was put to new use in the current investigation, where scientists outfitted the nanoparticles with antibodies, so that they would bind to cancer cells alone. The Rice group essentially used these particles as a Trojan horse, which they then detonated to great effect. The research was conducted on cancer cells collected from leukemia patients, as well as on cells collected from head and neck cancer patients.