Time cut from days to hours – Cancer drug delivery
CWRU’s researchers that are focused on cancer research have gone a step further by developing a technique that is able to deliver anti-cancer drugs to it’s targets within hours. It is a huge advance since the current time needed to perform such an action is 2 days.
All of the research was done on a laboratory mice. If this model would be applied to humans, it would surely benefit the patients since the time is significantly reduced.
Clemens Burda, director of the Center for Nanomaterial research at Case Western Reserve University and Yu Cheng, a graduate student have published a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society discussing this subject.
The model actually uses gold nanoparticle vectors to deliver PDT drugs to the target. „Gold nanoparticle vectors aren’t usually used in PDT, but since the gold is nontoxic and inert, we used it.“ said Cheng.
PDT (Photodynamic therapy) uses drugs that are sensitive to light. When they get exposed to light, they energize and burn the cancer cells away. Of course, PDT patients have to stay away from bright lights for days.
This research was funded by the National Institute of Health, Biomedical Research Technology Transfer Center and the National Science Foundation.
