New treatment for cancer

This article discusses how a new approached that is being develop to make cancer treatments more effective.

Recent advances in the field of chemical engineering have aided the development of new treatments for various diseases. One among these diseases is cancer. Anticancer drugs have been a reason for concern in the recent days. The solubility of these drugs is low, which makes the process of adding solvents to them mandatory. These solvents dilute the drugs, reduce their potency and even make them toxic.

Researchers from the ULCA’s California Research Institute working in coordination with Jonsson Cancer center have created a new drug delivery system that overcomes these problems. By slight manipulation of silica based nanoparticles to increase their delivering capacity, insoluble drugs can easily be delivered to the cancer cells for treatment.

The anticancer drug on which this test was performed is camptothecin. This study was headed by Fuyu Tamanoi and Jeffery Zink of the ULCA. In this method, insoluble anticancer drugs were embedded into the pores of nanoparticle materials and transported to the cancer affected cells to have an immediate impact on them. Hence, these particles are being used as vehicles to transport the drug to the infected cells.

The invention of the new drug delivery method creates hope for the success of treatment with camptothecin, which is the most effective of all the anticancer drugs. This drug is insoluble in its original form and hence had to be mixed with solvents to increase its effect on infected cells.

With the newly invented process, this drug can be transported to the targeted organs or cells through mesoporous silica nanoparticles. With further manipulation, the release of these drugs from the nanoparticle surface can also be controlled.