Gold Nanoparticle Cancer Research News
#3

Originally Posted on 11/22/2017 @ 11:04am

by Steven Warrenfeltz

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This is the third update of many that will be written to keep you up-to-date on Gold Nanoparticle Cancer Research; one of the most promising cancer treatments that are in the research pipeline.

All of the articles below were released over the last two weeks and each article has been summarized to make the subject matter more understandable.

Gold Nano Blog #3 - A Better Way Gold Puzzle Piece

For the last six-years, I've tried to help people understand how gold nanoparticles offer a better way to treat cancer than the methods we are using.

Gold Nanoparticle Cancer Research is a non-invasive cancer treatment that kills cancer cells without hurting surrounding healthy tissue and it does not have harmful side-effects.

In many of today's research studies, researchers are combining Gold Nanoparticles with many of today's methods for treating cancer which include lasers, radio-waves, chemotherapy drugs, radiation therapy, infrared light, radiotherapy, and CRISPR.

Here's a glimpse into what you'll find in this issue.

Gold Nanoparticles deliver chemotherapy drugs inside cancer cells and kill them from the inside-out
Depositing Gold Nanoparticle cancer killing depots in and around tumors to kill them with more effectiveness
Researchers are developing a self-test for women to detect Cervical Cancer Early
Chinese Researchers use Urinalysis to find detect cancer early

Gold Nanoparticles Help Chemotherapeutic Drugs Kill Cancer from Within

In the first article of this issue, a researcher reveals something very interesting about chemotherapy drugs that few people know:

"Getting chemotherapeutic drugs to penetrate tumors is very challenging, drugs tend to get pushed out of tumors rather than drawn in." Susan Clare - research associate professor of surgery at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

This is one of the biggest reasons why chemotherapy can be so harmful to those who take it is because an individual has to load up on the drug for it affect the cancer cells. Which in-turn causes harm to healthy cells while the patient is hoping that the chemo-drugs are killing the cancer.

This article is about how Researchers at Rice University and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine intend to make chemotherapy drugs more productive by getting them into cancer cells with the help of gold nanoparticles.

Researchers are investigating a way to deliver high doses of chemo-drugs inside tumors by using a laser and gold nanoparticles to remotely trigger the release of FDA approved cancer drugs inside cancer cells in laboratory cultures.

The research is in its infancy, but if the approach works Susan Clare stated the following:

"it could result in fewer side effects and potentially be used to treat many kinds of cancer. For example, one of the drugs in the study, lapatinib, is part of a broad class of chemotherapies called tyrosine kinase inhibitors that target specific proteins linked to different types of cancer. Other Federal Drug Administration-approved drugs in the class include imatinib (leukemia), gefitinib (breast, lung), erlotinib (lung, pancreatic), sunitinib (stomach, kidney) and sorafenib (liver, thyroid and kidney)." Researchers use gold nanoshells to effectively release cancer drugs inside tumors - News Medical Life Sciences

As previously mentioned this research is still in its infancy and currently being performed 'in vitro' a.k.a. in lab cultures, but the article provides a lot of information about how the researchers intend to use gold nanoparticles and lasers to help chemo-drugs do a better job at killing cancer.

Source: Researchers use gold nanoshells to effectively release cancer drugs inside tumors - News Medical Life Sciences

Using Gold Nanoparticles Depots
to Fight Cancer

In this next study, researchers are trying to find a better way to treat prostate and breast cancer using gold nanoparticle depots.

Brachytherapy seeds
photo provided courtesy of James Heilman, MD

Currently, one way that oncologists use to fight these types of cancer is by using a method to implant brachytherapy seeds.

Brachytherapy is a form of radiotherapy where a sealed radiation source is placed inside or next to the area requiring treatment. - wikipedia

These seeds are filled with radioactive isotopes that slowly release the radiation into the affected organ to kill cancer cells.

Unfortunately, one side effect of the current form of treatment is that these seeds sometimes leave 'hot spots' of radiation in one place.

However, researchers out of the University of Toronto have created depots the same size as the seeds, but that is filled with gold nanoparticles and radioactive isotopes.

The research has so far proven that the gold nanoparticle depots filled with the radioactive isotope 'yttrium-90' diffuse with a greater dose coverage and homogeneity.

The research is not over and experiments are continuing, the following is a small snippet of optimism among the researchers who are conducting the study.

"Based on their findings to date, the researchers are optimistic that cancer patients will benefit from the nanoparticle depots following further pre-clinical research and clinical trials. Applications of the depots could also extend beyond radiotherapy." - Nanoparticle 'depot' promises improved cancer treatment - Jude Dineley, medicalphysicsweb

See the full article here: Nanoparticle 'depot' promises improved cancer treatment - medicalphysicsweb

Cancer & Early Detection

It is common knowledge that the earlier you find out you're sick the better your chances are of getting over it more quickly.

The same logic works for cancer, the earlier it is diagnosed, the greater your chances are of beating it.

These last two articles are about two different international studies being done to find simpler ways to detect cancer in its early stages of development.

Early Detection of Cervical Cancer using Gold Nanoparticles

At IIT the Indian Institute of Technology researchers are developing a method of testing for Cervical Cancer without the help of a technician.

Currently, the only way to receive a diagnosis as to whether or not a woman has cervical cancer is through the visual inspection by a trained medical professional.

However, a team of researchers led by Dr. Aravind Kumar Rengan from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) are trying to change that by making the test easy enough that any woman can perform on herself.

The study involves using acetic acid, also known as vinegar, to determine the severity of cervical cancer.

The researchers have found that when acetic acid is applied on a cervix with precancerous lesions it leads to a reaction that creates a protein coagulation (a protein gel).

Tejaswini Appidi from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at IIT stated the following about the research:

“When more acetic acid is retrieved from the cervix of women with no cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (cervical cancer) the nanoparticles produced will be of a particular shape and size than when less acetic acid is retrieved.”

“Nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes produced by acetic acid of different quantities absorb different colours which results in colour differences.” - IIT teams developing a self test for cervical cancer - Prasad Ravindranath, Science Chronicle

colloidal gold nanoparticles

To help you to better visualize what Tejaswini Appidi stated above, here's an example:

In the self-test, to tell if a woman had cancer or not, gold nanoparticles would interact with the acetic acid to create different colors.

For instance, if a sample had retrieved a lot of acetic acids that were used in the test, this would mean that no gelling occurred and that there was 'no cancer' present in the sample, in this case, the test would show up as red. (much like the vial on the left, in the photo).

But, if there was a sign of cancer in the cervix the test would show a different color other than red because more gelling occurred and less acetic acid was retrieved. (much like the photo of colloidal gold or see the article for more information)

When/if, this test becomes available on the market, it would give a woman a private and inexpensive way to test this form of cancer.

You can read more about this study by clicking this link IIT teams developing a self test for cervical cancer- Prasad Ravindranath, Science Chronicle

The article goes on to talk about some of the challenges that the research team still faces to bring this self-test to the market.

Chinese Researchers use Urinalysis and Gold Nanoparticles
for the Early Detection of Cancer

In this short but informative article, researchers at the Fujian Normal University in Funzhou, China have developed a new non‑invasive way to detect cancer early.

This new early cancer detection system tests chemicals found through urinalysis and the surface enhancement (reflection) properties of gold nanoparticles.

The article states the following about the results of the study:

"urine samples from three groups of subjects were tested. These included nasopharyngeal cancer patients, esophaegeal cancer patients, and healthy volunteers. Results achieved diagnostic sensitivities above 90% and specificities above 95%, respectively."

Read the full article here: Non-Invasive Cancer Detection Using Affinity Chromatography and SERS - By Lewis Botcherby - Chromatography Online

One last thing...

To learn more about Gold Nanoparticle Cancer research and how it works; 'click here', on the page you’ll learn all there is to know about Gold Nanoparticle Cancer Research

In addition, at the bottom of the page, you’ll find more than 300 articles about the research that have been compiled over the last several years.

Thank You for your Time.

Take Care & God Bless,

Steve