The EVONANO platform allows scientists to grow virtual tumors and use artificial intelligence to automatically optimize the design of nanoparticles to treat them.
The ability to grow and treat virtual tumors is an important step towards developing new therapies for cancer. Importantly, scientists can use virtual tumors to optimize design of nanoparticle-based drugs before they are tested in the laboratory or patients. The paper, “Evolutionary computational platform for the automatic discovery of nanocarriers for cancer treatment,” is published today in the Nature journal Computational Materials.
The paper is the result of the European project EVONANO which involves Dr. Sabine Hauert and Dr. Namid Stillman from the University of Bristol, and is led by Dr. Igor Balaz at the University of Novi Sad.
“Simulations enable us to test many treatments, very quickly, and for a large variety of tumors. We are still at the early stages of making virtual tumors, given the complex nature of the disease, but the hope is that even these simple digital tumors can help us more efficiently design nanomedicines for cancer,” said Dr. Hauert.
Dr. Hauert said having the software to grow and treat virtual tumors could prove useful in the development of targeted cancer treatments.
“In the future, creating a digital twin of a patient tumor could enable the design of new nanoparticle treatments specialized for their needs, without the need for extensive trial and error or laboratory work, which is often costly and limited in its ability to quickly iterate on solutions suited for individual patients,” said Dr. Hauert.
Nanoparticle-based drugs have the potential for improved targeting of cancer cells. This is because nanoparticles are tiny vehicles that can be engineered to transport drugs to tumors. Their design changes their ability to move in the body, and correctly target cancer cells. A bioengineer might, for example, change the size, charge or material of the nanoparticle, coat the nanoparticles with molecules that make them easy to recognize by cancer cells, or load them with different drugs to kill cancer cells.
Using the new EVONANO platform, the team were able to simulate simple tumors, and more complex tumors with cancer stem cells, which are sometimes difficult to treat and lead to relapse of some cancer patients. The strategy identified nanoparticle designs that were known to work in previous research, as well as potential new strategies for nanoparticle design.
As Dr. Balaz highlights: “The tool we developed in EVONANO represents a rich platform for testing hypotheses on the efficacy of nanoparticles for various tumor scenarios. The physiological effect of tweaking nanoparticle parameters can now be simulated at the level of detail that is nearly impossible to achieve experimentally.”
The challenge is then to design the right nanoparticle. Using a machine learning technique called artificial evolution, the researchers fine tune nanoparticle designs until they can treat all scenarios tested while preserving healthy cells to limit potential side-effects.
News
Scientists Discover a Powerful New Weapon Against a Dangerous Gut Infection
The promise of an experimental treatment for C. difficile gut infections lies partly in the bacteria it leaves alive, according to early laboratory and mouse research. Broad-spectrum antibiotics can disrupt the gut’s microbial community, [...]
Your Bones May Hold a Hidden Clue to Blood Cancer Survival
For people with blood cancers called myelodysplastic syndromes, osteoporosis may hold an overlooked clue to survival, a three-year observational study suggests. In blood cancers that develop in the bone marrow, an important clue to [...]
Researchers Discover What Reading for Pleasure May Be Doing to Your Brain
Reading for pleasure may offer surprising benefits for the brain, with research linking the habit to better mental health, stronger cognitive abilities, and a lower risk of dementia. Reading for pleasure may do far [...]
Scientists Discover a Hidden Trigger That Keeps Inflammation Alive
Inflammation persists after proteins detach from immune receptors, revealing a potential target for autoimmune treatments. Since a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in the 1990s identified molecules called Toll-like Receptors as the guardians of the human [...]
A Virus Gives Itself Away the Moment It Attacks
Researchers have found the trigger behind a powerful bacterial defense against viruses. Viruses that prey on bacteria could become an increasingly important tool for treating bacterial infections, particularly as antibiotic resistance makes some infections [...]
Scientists Discover Aspirin May Slash Dementia Risk by 70% – but Only for Certain People
Aspirin was linked to a sharply lower dementia risk in some older adults, and their genes may hold the clue. A Monash University analysis found that older adults with a particular genetic profile had [...]
Inflammation May Awaken Dormant Cancer Cells Years After Treatment
The body’s response to inflammation may disturb cancer cells that have been lying silent for years, giving them an opportunity to grow again. Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have found that gut inflammation [...]
Where do nanoparticles go once they enter the body?
New international best practice guidance, co-written at ANSTO, sets out how to measure where nanoparticles like titanium dioxide end up in the body and how long they remain. The guidance has been shared by [...]
Long-Acting HIV Shots Could Solve a Major Treatment Challenge for Young People
A major African trial suggests that changing how HIV treatment is delivered could significantly improve viral suppression in adolescents. Young people with HIV were more likely to keep the virus suppressed when they received [...]
WHO Factsheets – The top 10 causes of death
In 2023, the 10 leading causes of death accounted for 33 million deaths, or 54% of the total 61 million deaths worldwide. The top global causes of death, in order of total number of lives lost, [...]
Aging Cells May Be Hiding From the Immune System – Scientists Think They Know How
Your immune system is supposed to clear out damaged cells. Researchers may have found how some of them hide and linger as the body ages. Researchers led by Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University have identified [...]
Your Voice May Reveal How Fast Your Brain Is Aging
Researchers have developed a machine-learning “speech clock” that estimates age from subtle patterns in how people speak and what they say. It is possible that people’s voices may contain certain signals of aging that [...]
Optogenetics Pioneers Win 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel, and Karl Deisseroth for the development of optogenetics, a revolutionary technology that uses light to control individual neurons [...]
Molecular Manufacturing: The Future of Nanomedicine – From NanoappsMedical Inc.
This book explores the revolutionary potential of atomically precise manufacturing technologies to transform global healthcare, as well as practically every other sector across society. This forward-thinking volume examines how envisaged Factory@Home systems might enable the cost-effective [...]
What is ‘American Covid’ and how bad is it?
Cases of so-called ‘American Covid’ are on the rise in the UK. The strain is officially called XFG, or ‘Stratus’, and is the most common variant in North America, hence the name. It might soon [...]
Researcher at Russian plague laboratory dies of ‘unknown’ infection
Russian authorities have imposed "anti-epidemic measures" after a laboratory worker at an institute in Siberia dedicated to studying the plague and other infectious diseases died of a mysterious illness. The researcher, a 28-year-old female [...]
