Category: Health & longevity

Nanowerk News reports that an international nanotech collaboration of American and Korean scientists, funded by the Korean government, has developed multifunctional gold-coated nanowires that are designed to swim through the blood stream and attach to cancerous cells via antibodies against the cancer cells. Exposure to an electromagnetic field should heat the nanowires and destroy the… Continue reading Nanotechnology-produced wires to swim through blood, attach to, and kill cancer cells

Using a promising nanotech approach to deliver the RNA molecules, a type of nanoparticle described as a neutral liposome was administered to mice bearing melanoma tumors and found to cause a significant decrease in tumor growth and in the number of metastatic tumor colonies.

Previously unknown spectral properties of carbon nanotubes functionalized with DNA have been exploited to create nanotech sensors that can simultaneously detect several different substances, in real time, within living cells, to single molecule sensitivity.

The effectiveness of treatment with multifunctional nanoparticles was studied using human breast tumors grown in rats lacking an immune system so that the variation in the effectiveness of treatment could be compared among individual breast tumors.

In laboratory tests, nanoparticles that include a small molecule of nucleic acid that binds to a target molecule on prostate cancer cells were used to carry a lethal dose of the drug into the cancer cells without affecting cells lacking the cancer-specific target.

A nanotech assay for trace levels of proteins associated with cancer is a thousand fold more sensitive than are current assays.

Nanotech membranes made of nanoporous alumina coated with diamond-like carbon films promise to minimize problems with medical implants.

A patch consisting of three layers of polymers can be loaded with nanoparticles and attached to living cells to give them nanotech backpacks.