DA-IICT

NANOTECHNOLOGY And CANCER

Present and the Future Prospects
Vivek Vaish 200901213

2011

SC-431 Assignment

What is Cancer? Cells are the building blocks of all living things. Normal cells multiply when the body needs them, and die when the body doesn't need them. Cancer grows out of normal cells in the body. Cancer appears to occur when the growth of cells in the body is out of control and cells divide too quickly. Hence, cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Cancerous cells are also called malignant cells.

There are many different kinds of cancers. Cancer can develop in almost any organ or tissue, such as the lung, colon, breasts, skin, bones, or nerve tissue. Cancer is a complex disease compared to other diseases. In contrast to dramatic reversals in death rates from heart disease, stroke, and infectious disease during the past 50 years, the death rate from cancer has declined only marginally over the past several decades. This occurred, despite high level of efforts in both basic research and the development of new clinical treatments. It can be argued that, non-traditional, paradigm shifting ideas and approaches are needed in order to improve this unfortunate trend. Conventional ways of Detection Cancer can be detected by growth or abnormal changes in an organ or by XRay or CT scan. This is followed by a Biopsy which confirms the presence of Carcinogenic cells in the body. Conventional Cancer Treatment Strategies: Surgery: The first line of treatment for solid tumours, and may be curative if the tumour has not metastasized. Radiation Treatments: Uses ionizing radiation.

Chemotherapeutic Agents: Three main classes of cytotoxic drugs used to treat neoplastic disease namely alkylating agents, the antimetabolites, and the natural products. However, all these methods have their own limitations. In surgery one loses the organ and the cancer may appear again, in radiation therapy even the healthy cells get burnt, cancerous cells burning is not uniform and the burnt part may become dead and non-functional, in chemotherapy treatment is harmful to healthy cells, approach is gross and rarely successful if the cancer is in advanced stage. Nanotechnology And Cancer Nanotechnology has emerged as a disruptive technology with a potential to generate new diagnostic and therapeutic products and as a result improve cancer outcomes. As it is said, Prevention is better than cure; early cancer detection plays a very crucial role in treatment. Nano-devices are capable of detecting cancer at its earliest stages and delivering anticancer drugs specifically to malignant cells. There are many universities and companies worldwide working in this area. It is possible that these efforts will result in cancer becoming being nearly eliminated in a decade or so, in the same way that vaccines nearly eliminated smallpox. Several concepts have been already demonstrated in academic laboratories and are gradually finding their ways into translational world. Nanotechnology in Cancer Detection The size of Nanoparticles (NP) is to the order of a few of nm and the cells are of the size of few microns. So NP can enter inside the cells and can access the DNA molecules/Genes and, there is a possibility that the defect in the genes can be detected. DNA molecules can be detected in their incipient stage. This could be possible in vivo or in vitro. It will be shown latter that NP show potential of cancer detection in its incipient stage. Iron oxide nanoparticles can be used to improve MRI images of cancer tumours. The nanoparticle is coated with a peptide that binds to a cancer tumour. Once the nanoparticles are attached to the tumour, the magnetic
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property of the iron oxide enhances the images from the Magnetic Resonance Imagining scan. Sensors based upon nanoparticles or nanowires can detect proteins related to specific types of cancer cells in blood samples. This could allow early detection of cancer. T2 Biosystems uses super-paramagnetic nanoparticles that bind to the cancer indicating protein and cluster together. These clusters provide a magnetic resonance signal indicating the presence of the cancer related protein. For another approach, researchers at John Hopkins University use quantum dots and molecules that emit a fluorescent glow to detect DNA strands that are early indicators of cancer. Quantum Dots (qdots) may be used in the future for locating cancer tumours in patients and in the near term for performing diagnostic tests in samples. Invitrogen's website provides information about qdots that are available for both uses, although at this time the use "in vivo" (in a living creature) is limited to experiments with lab animals. Concerns about the toxicity of the material that quantum dots are made from are one of the reasons restricting the use of quantum dots in human patients. However, work is being done with quantum dots composed of silicon, which is believed to be less toxic than the cadmium contained in many quantum dots. Nanoparticles can attach to proteins or other molecules, allowing detection of disease indicators in a lab sample at a very early stage. There are several efforts to develop nanoparticle disease detection systems underway. One system being developed by Nanosphere, Inc. uses gold nanoparticles, Nanosphere has clinical study results with their Verigene system involving its ability to detect four different nucleic acids, while another system being developed by T2 Biosystems uses magnetic nanoparticles to identify specimens, including proteins, nucleic acids, and other materials.

Nanotechnology in Cancer Treatment One treatment involves targeted chemotherapy that delivers a tumour-killing agent called tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF) to cancer tumours. TNF is attached to a gold nanoparticle along with Thiol-derivatized polyethylene glycol (PEG-THIOL), which hides the TNF bearing nanoparticle from the immune system. This allows the nanoparticle to flow through the blood stream without being attacked. For more details read the article at this link. The company developing this targeted chemotherapy method to deliver TNF and other chemotherapy drugs to cancer tumours are called CytImmune. One heat therapy to destroy cancer tumours using nanoparticles is called AuroShell. The AuroShell nanoparticles circulate through a patients bloodstream, exiting where the blood vessels are leaking at the site of cancer tumours. Once the nanoparticles accumulate at the tumour the AuroShell nanoparticles are used to concentrate the heat from infrared light to destroy cancer cells with minimal damage to surrounding healthy cells. For a good visual illustration of this process, click here. Nanospectra Biosciences has developed such a treatment using AuroShell that has been approved for a pilot trial with human patients. Targeted heat therapy is being developed to destroy breast cancer tumors. In this method antibodies that are strongly attracted to proteins produced in one type of breast cancer cell are attached to nanotubes, causing the nanotubes to accumulate at the tumor. Infrared light from a laser is absorbed by the nanotubes and produces heat that incinerates the tumor. For more details read the article at this link. X-ray therapy may be able to destroy cancer tumors using a nanoparticle called nbtxr3. The nbtxr3 nanoparticles, when activated by x-rays, generate electrons that cause the destruction of cancer tumors to which they have attached themselves. Click here for more details on this method. This is intended to be used in place of radiation therapy with much less damage to healthy tissue. Nanobiotix has released preclinical results for this technique. An intriguing targeted chemotherapy method uses one nanoparticle to deliver the chemotherapy drug and a separate nanoparticle to guide the drug carrier to the tumour. First gold nanorods circulating through the bloodstream exit
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where the blood vessels are leaking at the site of cancer tumors. Once the nanorods accumulate at the tumour they are used to concentrate the heat from infrared light; heating up the tumour. This heat increases the level of a stress related protein on the surface of the tumour. The drug carrying nanoparticle (a liposome) is attached to amino acids that bind to this protein, so the increased level of protein at the tumour speeds up the accumulation of the chemotherapy drug carrying liposome at the tumour. For more details read the article at this link. An improved way to shield nanoparticles delivering chemotherapy drugs from the immune system has been developed by forming the nanoparticles from the membranes of red blood cells. Delivery of short interfering RNAs (siRNA) is interesting because siRNA simply stops the cancer tumour from growing and there is the potential to tailor synthetic siRNA to the version of cancer in an individual patient. For more details read the article at this link. A method to increase the number of cancer fighting immune cells in cancer tumors is interesting. Nanoparticles containing drug molecules called interleukins are attached to immune cells ( T-cells). The idea is that when the T-cells reach a tumor the nanoparticles release the drug molecules, which cause the T-cells to reproduce. If enough T-cells are reproduced in the cancer tumor the cancer can be destroyed. This method has been tested on laboratory mice with very good results. Magnetic nanoparticles that attach to cancer cells in the blood stream may allow the cancer cells to be removed before they establish new tumors. For more details read the article at this link. Another method that targets individual cancer cells inserts gold nanoparticles into the cells, then shines a laser on the nanoparticles. The heat explodes the cancer cells. For more details read the article at this link. Using gold nanoparticles to deliver platinum to cancer tumors may reduce the side effects of platinum cancer therapy. The key is that the toxicity level of platinum depends upon the molecule it is bonded to (for the tech types the toxicity depends upon the oxidation state of the platinum). So the researchers
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chose a platinum containing molecule that has low toxicity to attach to the gold nanoparticles. When the platinum bearing nanoparticle reaches a cancer tumor it encounters an acidic solution which changes the platinum to it's toxic state, in which it can kill cancer cells. For more details read the article at this link. Using polymer nanoparticles to deliver a molecule called JSI-124 to cancer tumors. This molecule degrades the ability of the cancer cells to suppress the immune system, possibly slowing the growth of cancer tumors. For more details read the article at this link.

Conclusion

Nanotechnology has large potential in detection and treatment of cancer. The potential arises due to the ability of NP entering inside the cells and access to the chromosomes/FNA molecules. Certain nano structures like nanocantilevers, nanopores, nanotubes, nanoshells and quantum dotes are prospective structures that would help in detecting and treatment of cancers. Dendrimers are to serve detection, treatment and signaling that the cells are killed. Still there are many challenges that are to be met before use of NT becomes a reality.

References http://www.understandingnano.com/cancer-treatment-nanotechnology.html http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/treatment/types-of-treatment http://www.understandingnano.com/medicine.html http://ajes.in/PDFs/082/4.%20Nanotechnology%20and%20Cancer%20Treatment.pdfhttp://www.he althtipscity.com/cancer-treatment/ www.physorg.com/news184604256.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100324184604.htm