Lots of good medical stuff lately
Cancer Bomb!
Imagine a cancer drug that can burrow into a tumor, seal the exits and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins, all while leaving healthy cells unscathed.
MIT researchers have designed a nanoparticle to do just that.
The dual-chamber, double-acting, drug-packing "nanocell" proved effective and safe, with prolonged survival, against two distinct forms of cancers-melanoma and Lewis lung cancer-in mice.
The team loaded the outer membrane of the nanocell with an anti-angiogenic drug and the inner balloon with chemotherapy agents. A "stealth" surface chemistry allows the nanocells to evade the immune system, while their size (200 nanometers) makes them preferentially taken into the tumor. They are small enough to pass through tumor vessels, but too large for the pores of normal vessels.
Once the nanocell is inside the tumor, its outer membrane disintegrates, rapidly deploying the anti-angiogenic drug. The blood vessels feeding the tumor then collapse, trapping the loaded nanoparticle in the tumor, where it slowly releases the chemotherapy.
The team tested this model in mice. The double-loaded nanocell shrank the tumor, stopped angiogenesis and avoided systemic toxicity much better than other treatment and delivery variations.
And another Cancer thing
The technique works by inserting microscopic synthetic rods called carbon nanotubules into cancer cells.
When the rods are exposed to near-infra red light from a laser they heat up, killing the cell, while cells without rods are left unscathed.
Oh, and some guys in Baltimore apparantly cured paralysis.
SCIENTISTS yesterday claimed to have used stem cells from a human embryo to partially cure paralysed laboratory mice. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, said they had successfully treated 120 mice and rats who had been infected with a virus which left them paralysed, using stem cells harvested from human embryos.
Oh and these guys think they may have a way to make a universal flu vaccine.
BRITISH scientists are working on a revolutionary "universal" vaccine to provide lifetime protection against all types of flu.
A single jab would offer permanent immunity against influenza and prevent the need to develop new vaccines every year to combat new strains of the virus.
Imagine a cancer drug that can burrow into a tumor, seal the exits and detonate a lethal dose of anti-cancer toxins, all while leaving healthy cells unscathed.
MIT researchers have designed a nanoparticle to do just that.
The dual-chamber, double-acting, drug-packing "nanocell" proved effective and safe, with prolonged survival, against two distinct forms of cancers-melanoma and Lewis lung cancer-in mice.
The team loaded the outer membrane of the nanocell with an anti-angiogenic drug and the inner balloon with chemotherapy agents. A "stealth" surface chemistry allows the nanocells to evade the immune system, while their size (200 nanometers) makes them preferentially taken into the tumor. They are small enough to pass through tumor vessels, but too large for the pores of normal vessels.
Once the nanocell is inside the tumor, its outer membrane disintegrates, rapidly deploying the anti-angiogenic drug. The blood vessels feeding the tumor then collapse, trapping the loaded nanoparticle in the tumor, where it slowly releases the chemotherapy.
The team tested this model in mice. The double-loaded nanocell shrank the tumor, stopped angiogenesis and avoided systemic toxicity much better than other treatment and delivery variations.
And another Cancer thing
The technique works by inserting microscopic synthetic rods called carbon nanotubules into cancer cells.
When the rods are exposed to near-infra red light from a laser they heat up, killing the cell, while cells without rods are left unscathed.
Oh, and some guys in Baltimore apparantly cured paralysis.
SCIENTISTS yesterday claimed to have used stem cells from a human embryo to partially cure paralysed laboratory mice. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, said they had successfully treated 120 mice and rats who had been infected with a virus which left them paralysed, using stem cells harvested from human embryos.
Oh and these guys think they may have a way to make a universal flu vaccine.
BRITISH scientists are working on a revolutionary "universal" vaccine to provide lifetime protection against all types of flu.
A single jab would offer permanent immunity against influenza and prevent the need to develop new vaccines every year to combat new strains of the virus.