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
Smart contact lenses for cancer diagnostics and screening
Scientists from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) have developed a contact lens that can capture and detect exosomes, nanometer-sized vesicles found in bodily secretions which have the potential for being diagnostic cancer [...]
Novel Nanoplatform Found Effective Against Esophageal Cancer
Among the total number of deaths caused by different types of cancer, esophageal cancer is the sixth most significant. Several conventional treatments, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery have multiple side effects, including off-target [...]
Stem Cell Membrane-Coated Nanoparticles in Tumor Therapy
Cell membrane-coated nanoparticles, applied in targeted drug delivery strategies, combine the intrinsic advantages of synthetic nanoparticles and cell membranes. Although stem cell-based delivery systems were highlighted for their targeting capability in tumor therapy, inappropriate [...]
The TB Vaccine Mysteriously Protects Against Lots of Things. Now We Know Why
When babies in the African countries of Guinea Bissau and Uganda were given the tuberculosis vaccine, something remarkable happened. Instead of the vaccine only protecting against the target bacteria – Myocbacterium tuberculosis – the tuberculosis vaccine offered broad protection against a [...]
Extinct Pathogens Ushered The Fall of Ancient Civilizations, Scientists Say
Thousands of years ago, across the Eastern Mediterranean, multiple Bronze Age civilizations took a distinct turn for the worse at around the same time. The Old Kingdom of Egypt and the Akkadian Empire both collapsed, and there was [...]
The Origins of Covid-19 Are More Complicated Than Once Thought
IN OCTOBER 2014, virologist Edward Holmes took a tour of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, a once relatively overlooked city of about 11 million people in the central Chinese province of Hubei. The market would [...]
Self-Healable, Human-Like Artificial Skin
Self-healable ionic sensing materials with fatigue resistance are imperative in robotics and soft electronics for extended service life. The existing artificial ionic skins with self-healing capacity were prepared by network reconfiguration, constituting low-energy amorphous [...]
Nanoparticles increase light scattering, boost solar cell performance
As demand for solar energy rises around the world, scientists are working to improve the performance of solar devices—important if the technology is to compete with traditional fuels. But researchers face theoretical limits on [...]
Scientists Use Shrimp Shell Nanoparticles to Strengthen Cement
When shrimp shell nanoparticles were mixed into cement paste, the material became substantially stronger — researchers propose an innovation that could lead to less seafood waste and fewer carbon dioxide emissions from concrete production. [...]
Does This Video Show A Nanobot Inseminating Egg With “Lazy” Sperm?
A black-and-white video shared on social media showed a microscopic corkscrew-shaped helix as it appeared to consume a sperm, transport it, and ultimately lead the little swimmer into the wall of an [...]
Study Could Help Reduce Environmental Risk of Quantum Dots
Polymers containing quantum dots (QDs) are considered crucial components of next-generation consumer items, but ambiguity remains regarding how these compounds may negatively affect public health and the environment. A pre-proof paper from the Journal of Hazardous [...]
New nanocomposite copper coating could be the next superbug fighter
A new copper coating that kills bacteria quicker and in greater amounts than current formulations could soon be available for hospitals and other high-traffic facilities. Although current formulations made of pure copper are antibacterial [...]
Vaccinating against cancer? A new class of nanoparticle vaccines developed
A vaccination as tumor therapy - with a vaccine individually created from a patient's tissue sample that " attaches" the body's own immune system to cancer cells: the basis for this long-term vision has [...]
New Insight Into Nanoassemblies for Specific Cancer Therapy
Although retinoic acid (RA) can induce cell death, its weak anticancer efficacy limits its clinical applications. To this end, stimulus-responsive self-assembling prodrug-based nanomedicines are promising candidates that enable controlled drug delivery. In an article [...]
Affordable Sources of Commercial Graphene for Energy Applications
Graphene is a multifunctional carbon nanomaterial widely synthesized for its applications in composites, energy storage, and sensors. Although previous reviews mentioned that achieving an increased yield compromises graphene quality, limiting its commercialization, recent research [...]
Centaurus: what we know about the new COVID variant and why there’s no cause for alarm
A new COVID variant has recently been detected in several countries including the UK, US, India, Australia and Germany. Called BA.2.75, it’s a subvariant of omicron. You might have also heard it called “Centaurus”, the [...]
