Medicine's Next Big Thing: Nanomedicine -- Research Summary

BACKGROUND: Nanotechnology involves working on an atomic or molecular scale to create materials or devices that are 100 nanometers in size or smaller. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter. Nanomedicine is an offspring of nanotechnology, but it's a field specific to medical intervention. Nanomedicine is thought to be an area of research that will enable many diseases and conditions that limit the human life expectancy to be wiped out.

A BETTER DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM: Researchers at the NanoMedicine Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston are working on a new more targeted way to get drugs for cancer and other diseases to areas of the body they're needed most. Their goal is to reduce the amount of drugs that go to other areas and prevent unintended injury, or side effects. With what's available in today's medical community, only a small fraction of an injected drug reaches its intended target. If too much drug is administered to a patient, it can hurt them, but if too little is given, there is no benefit. The new system could one day allow doctors to achieve optimal results with less medication.

The nanoscale drug delivery system is a multi-stage technique. Nanocarriers 100 times smaller than a strand of hair are guided through the blood system to diseased cells. Once they reach the cells, they release diagnostic agents, medicine, or both. In the first stage of the approach, nanocarriers go to the inner wall of blood vessels, near the unwanted cells. As those nanocarriers degrade they release a second stage of more tiny nanoparticles that can penetrate the blood vessel wall to get inside the diseased cells. The third stage of the system involves the release of medications to kill the tumor and other agents that take images of it.  The nanocarriers are made of silicon, which is fully biodegradable so it won't injure the body.

Researchers are especially interested in using this upcoming technology to fight breast cancer. Preclinical tests are focusing on that application, which is currently being tested on animals that have human tumors. It is also hoped that the application can one day be used to treat heart disease, hemorrhaging and other diseases that affect blood vessels.

NANOTECHNOLOGY ABROAD: Using magnetic power, researchers in Berlin have found a way to use tiny particles of iron to fight brain tumors and prostate cancer. A clinical trial of their technology showed magnetic nanoparticles can be safely administered to humans and will produce localized tumor-killing temperatures when stimulated by an oscillating magnetic field. Investigators inject magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles directly into a patient's tumors. They then used a magnetic field to excite the nanoparticles, which produces heat, killing the tumor cells. Each treatment lasted one hour and was repeated weekly for six weeks. Patients reported discomfort caused by internal heating, but using tubes of cooled liquid keeps the skin cool enough to manage this side effect. The trial was too small to say this treatment is more effective than current treatments, though researchers did note eight of 10 patients experienced a decline in prostate specific antigen levels that lasted an average of 4.5 months after therapy.

If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Melissa Medalie at mmedalie@ivanhoe.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Natalie Wong Camarata, Media Relations Specialist
UT Health Science Center at Houston
(713) 500-3307
Natalie.W.Camarata@uth.tmc.edu