Nanotech Trojan Horse That Kills Cancer

An anonymous reader writes "University of Michigan scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumor cells - increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects." From the article: "The drug delivery vehicle used by U-M scientists is a manmade polymer molecule called a dendrimer. Less than five nanometers in diameter, these dendrimers are small enough to slip through tiny openings in cell membranes. One nanometer equals one-billionth of a meter, which means it would take 100,000 nanometers lined up side-by-side to equal the diameter of a human hair."

Comments

How it works

[Kainaw]

In case you are like me and you just want to know how they targetted the cancer cells, this is a very brief rundown:

All cells require folate to survive. Cancer cells suck up folate like it's crack. They put the poison in the folate. All cells absorb some of the poisoned folate. Cancer cells absorb most of it.

Pretty nice idea, but it made me wonder about the push to get expectent mothers to take excessive amounts of folic acid (folate). Does that make them more prone to cancer by giving the cancer cells extra food?