Carbon Nanotubes Can Exist Safely Inside the Body, Help Treat Cancer

iandoh writes "A team of scientists at Stanford University has tracked the movement of carbon nanotubes through the digestive systems of mice. They've determined that the nanotubes do not exhibit any toxicity in the mice, and are safely expelled after delivering their payload. As a result, the study paves the way toward future applications of nanotubes in the treatment of illnesses. Previous research by the same team demonstrated that nanotubes can be used to fight cancer. The nanotubes do this in two ways. One method involves shining laser light on the nanotubes, which generates heat to destroy cancer cells. Another method involves attaching medicine to the nanotubes, which are able to accurately 'find' cancerous cells without impacting healthy cells."

Comments

Commie Plot

[repapetilto]

Though they may sound less than gorgeous visually, the feathery nanotubes turned in a beautiful performance in practical terms, Dai said. The coating of PEG made the nanotubes highly water soluble, which helped them to stay in the blood instead of being absorbed.

I'd prefer to keep my precious bodily fluids pure and unsapped thank you very much.

oh really?

[Goldsmith]

Another paper out this week seems to directly contradict that headline.

What Dai (the Stanford professor) is actually claiming is that specially functionalized nanotubes gather at the back end of the digestive tract, and seem to dissapear. Pure nanotubes cause all sorts of problems. There's an important distinction there, but this is still good news for nanotube (and cancer) research.

You're kidding me right?

[Plazmid]

SINGLE WALL nanotubes do no harm? That is really surprised me because single wall nanotubes are a lot thinner than multiwall and most of the worries have been about them acting like tiny katanas and slicing up cell membranes. A while back someone made an antiseptic coating using carbon nanotube set up like a tiny sharp as hell bed of nails. Another worry was that biomolecules, DNA, RNA, proteins, etc might wrap around single wall nanotubes and gum up cellular machinery. In fact someone used this property to make a nifty little mercury sensor. See more here http://www.news.uiuc.edu/NEWS/06/0126nanotubes.html Of course the nanotubes were coated with polyethylene glycol to prevent stuff like this from happening, so nanotubes might still be toxic uncoated. There definitely needs to be another study done on nanotube toxicity to confirm the results.