| In recent years, the number of targeted cancer drugs has continued to rise. However, conventional chemotherapeutic agents still play an important role in cancer treatment. These include platinum-based cytotoxic agents that attack and kill cancer cells. But these agents also damage healthy tissue and cause severe side effects. | |
| Researchers at ETH Zurich have now identified an approach that allows for a more selective cancer treatment with drugs of this kind (Angewandte Chemie, “Peptide-Coated Platinum Nanoparticles with Selective Toxicity against Liver Cancer Cells”). | |
| Platinum can be cytotoxic when oxidised to platinum(II) and occurs in this form in conventional platinum-based chemotherapeutics. Non-oxidised platinum(0), however, is far less toxic to cells. Based on this knowledge, a team led by Helma Wennemers, Professor at the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, and Michal Shoshan, a postdoc in her group, looked for a way to introduce platinum(0) into the target cells, and only then for it to be oxidised to platinum(II). | |
| To this end, they used non-oxidised platinum nanoparticles, which first had to be stabilized with a peptide. They screened a library containing thousands of peptides to identify a peptide suitable for producing platinum nanoparticles (2.5 nanometres in diameter) that are stable for years. |
Image Credit: Shutterstock
News This Week
Graphene Shows Promise for Repairing Broken Bones
When you were a kid, did you ever sign a classmate’s cast after they broke an arm or a leg? Your name would be on display there for the rest of the semester. Broken [...]
What Are Nanobots? What Are Their Future Implications?
Inventors and scientists have been continuously working towards reducing the size of technological components. Room-sized computers to laptops that are slimmer than a pane of glass? It’s done. Huge bulky telephones to smartphones that [...]
Robotics These Nano-Robots Are Super-Tiny And Can Walk Inside Your Body
You have witnessed a variety of nano-devices that were designed for tasks including delivering medicines within the body. All of them used to move in a variety of ways. However, the latest nano-device is [...]
Nanosponges sop up toxins and help repair tissues
To take his fledgling lab to new heights, Liangfang Zhang hatched a plan that he considered brilliant in its simplicity. It involved procedures that many of his peers found a little out there. But [...]
U of T Engineering Science student investigating the use of nanomedicine in cancer research
Netra Rajesh is an undergraduate Engineering Science student specializing in Biomedical Systems Engineering. She is currently on her Professional Experience Year (PEY) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where her research lies at the [...]
40% of A.I. start-ups in Europe have almost nothing to do with A.I.
Nearly half of the companies in Europe that call themselves AI start-ups don't in fact use artificial intelligence, a new report found. The research, published Tuesday by London-based venture capital firm MMC Ventures, found [...]
New quantum sensor could improve cancer treatment
A new quantum sensor developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) has proven it can outperform existing technologies and promises significant advancements in long-range 3D imaging and monitoring [...]
Researchers look toward nature to beat cancer
Every year, more than 18 million people around the world are told, "You have cancer." In the U.S., nearly half of all men and more than one-third of women will develop some kind of [...]
Nanotech Makes it Possible for Mice to See In Infrared
Summary: Researchers use nanotech to enhance vision in mice, enabling them to see infrared light as well as visible light. Source: Cell Press. Mice with vision enhanced by nanotechnology were able to see infrared [...]
Other published works by Frank Boehm, NA Founder
Immune Aspects of Biopharmaceuticals and Nanomedicines Available from CRC Press 1st Edition Raj Bawa, Janos Szebeni, Thomas J Webster, Gerald F. Audette The enormous advances in the immunology of biotherapeutics and nanomedicines in the [...]
Artificial Intelligence – Ethics, Governance and Policy Challenges – the report by CEPS released
Artificial Intelligence - Ethics, Governance and Policy Challenges by Andrea Renda and CEPS Think Tank released. About the report: CEPS is launching a Task Force to try to bring back the AI debate to [...]
Nanofacturing project accelerates development of innovative medicines
The Nanofacturing consortium has worked on a pan-European nanopharmaceutical project to develop new manufacturing methods and improve supply chain co-ordination to advance treatments for rare cancers, autoimmune diseases and viral infections. The Nanofacturing collaboration [...]
Tiny Robots Swimming in Your Eye Could Provide Radical New Treatments
You know those little motes or floaters you that you sometimes see moving in your vision? Well, someday very soon, those could be robots. An international team of medical researchers has unveiled a new [...]
Everything at a glance – new 3D method visualizes nanoparticles in the lung
Scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München, a partner in the German Center for Lung Research, have presented a new imaging method in the scientific journal ACS Nano ("Three-Dimensional Quantitative Co-Mapping of Pulmonary Morphology and [...]
Video – Johannes Lierfeld ‘The control problem of Artificial Intelligence as an ethical challenge’
Note: This videoblog is in German. It was produced by the Institute of Art & Art Theory of the University of Cologne. Humanity faces epochal challenges in the age of digitization. In particular, [...]
Hybrid vesicles of lipids and peptides release drug payload on warming
Nanoscale drug-delivery capsules that release their therapeutic cargo when triggered by a temperature change could boost the efficacy and reduce the side effects of many drugs. Researchers at RIKEN have combined lipids and peptides [...]
Leave A Comment