Gold Beads Can Fight Cancer, Too

descil writes "In addition to the Reovirus story posted earlier, Health Central reports that nanoscopic gold-coated beads can be used to kill cancerous cells, while leaving other tissues undamaged. The researchers tested their technique on human breast cancer cells and on cancerous tumors grown on mice. In each case, the combination of nanoshells and near-infrared light caused irreversible heat damage to tumor cells while leaving surrounding tissue unharmed."

Comments

Somewhat misleading article

[G4from128k]

The article makes it sound like IR-illuminated nanoshells in normal tissue would not cause damage. But this is untrue. The nanoshells must somehow be delivered to the tumor where IR-illumination makes them hot and kills all the neighboring cells.

The nanoshells are a good idea, but they do rely on some antibody/target/delivery mechanism to get the nanoshells into the right place. If the nanoshells migrate into the wrong location, they will kill healthy tissue.

BTW, there are other cancer therapies based on migrate-and-kill strategies. Some use chemicals that are preferentially taken up by cancer cells that can be made extremely toxic when exposed to light.