A cancer treatment that uses titanium dioxide nanoparticles to kill tumour cells has been given a sound revamping by researchers in Japan. The new strategy improves the stability of the nanoparticles and the treatment may be able to penetrate more deeply into human tissues than ever before, targeting problematic tumours, through the use of ultrasound.
Atsushi Harada and colleagues at Osaka Prefecture University encapsulated the titanium dioxide nanoparticles inside micelles (an aggregate of surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid). The team grafted polyethylene glycol, a polymer with many medical uses, onto the micelles to stabilise them, improve their biocompatibility and to ensure that the micelles had negligible cytotoxicity. ‘Low cytotoxicity is the most important property of our micellar system’ Harada explains.
Titanium dioxide nanoparticle-entrapped micelles can selectively kill cells at only the ultrasound-irradiated area
Read the full article at Chemistry World.
Titanium dioxide nanoparticle-entrapped polyion complex micelles generate singlet oxygen in the cells by ultrasound irradiation for sonodynamic therapy
Atsushi Harada, Masafumi Ono, Eiji Yuba and Kenji Kono
Biomater. Sci., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C2BM00066K
