Worm-Like Nanoparticles Used to Kill Breast Cancer Cells

The project was co-led by Assoc. Prof. Cyrille Boyer, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) School of Chemical Engineering (Sydney, Australia) and the Australian Center for NanoMedicine (Sydney), and Prof. Thomas Davis from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), and involved Dr. Bunyamin Karagoz from Istanbul Technical University (Turkey).

Developing nanoparticles to target drugs directly to specific regions of the body is an increasing field of medicine, and these new findings suggest changing the shape of nanoparticles could slash both treatment costs and side effects. “What we’ve discovered is that a different shaped nanoparticle can have a very different effect on cancer cells, even with the same amount of drug,” said Dr. Boyer. “However there is still a lot of work to do and we need to test the nanoparticles in vitro with a range of cancer cells.”

Research had earlier mostly focused on spherical drug delivery systems as they are easier to make, but this new study additionally offers a simple and inexpensive approach to devising three different nanoparticle shapes: vesicular, spherical, and tubular or “worm-like.”

The researchers are now looking into whether cylindrical shape nanoparticles also deliver drugs more effectively to other types of cancers.

Related Links:
University of New South Wales School of Chemical Engineering
Monash University
Istanbul Technical University