New research using nanoparticles is on the frontline on the war against cancer

OU researchers are hoping extremely tiny particles outfitted with medicine can be used to discover and fight cancer more effectively.

Dr. Rajagopal Ramesh, who has worked at the OU Health and Sciences Center for the past year and a half as a researcher, is creating and testing nanoparticles on lung cancer cells to discover new ways to fight cancer.

AT A GLANCE

Nanoparticles

The particles Dr. Rajagopal Ramesh and the OU Health Sciences Center researchers are working with are 18 nanometers in size. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

The nanoparticles, which are billionths of a meter in size, are composed of an iron core and a gold layer covered in Cetuximab, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved antibody, Ramesh said. The particles are introduced into the body intravenously, according to a peer-reviewed research article in the science journal PLoS ONE.

The particles’ size allows them to maneuver through the body’s smallest blood vessels with greater ease than traditional drugs, the iron core allows the use of MR, and the golden surface helps medicine adhere to the particle while having optical properties that illuminate under laser light, Ramesh said.

Varying on the density of the gold under laser light, the particles will illuminate in shades of blue, red or green. For example, if there was a tumor infested with those particles, a doctor could shine a laser over the surface and identify the edges of a tumor, Ramesh said. Without this technology, doctors could surgically extract a portion of a tumor but leave superfluous cancer cells remaining around the edge.

The initial purpose of the research was to curb the collateral damage done by chemotherapy to healthy cells and to increase the duration of drug circulation in the body, Ramesh said.

When the size of the capsule for this therapy was brought down to the nano level, it became easier for the drug to pass through the blood vessels and have made a greate impact on tumors, Ramesh said.

The materials used for these drugs can come from a wide range of substances. Ramesh and his team have been using an iron core in the particles so they will show up using MRI.

Traditionally, to assess the effectiveness of a treatment, patients will prepare for days before undergoing an MRI, which is costly and time consuming, Ramesh said. That time can be better spent, and a few days are often the difference between life and death in cancer treatment, Ramesh said. The nanoparticles’ iron core makes it possible to perform an MRI without the days of preparation to immediately establish a treatment’s effectiveness, Ramesh said.

“What we are coming into now is the age of personalized medicine,” Ramesh said. “All cancers are unique. One person’s lung cancer is different than another person’s lung cancer.”

The gold serves other benefits as well. When gold is hit with light, it generates heat. By raising the temperature of the particles, the cancer can be burned away. Also, the golden surface is conducive for attaching antibodies, which help fight the cancer, Ramesh said. The Cetuximab antibody essentially starves cancer cells by not allowing them to receive the signals they need to grow.

The research is promising, but don’t expect the procedure to be on the market anytime soon, Ramesh said. There are many more steps to take and more research to be done before this can move to human trials, and after that, there is the hurdle of getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Original post:
OU nanoparticle research may fight cancer cells