Free Republic

An emerging nanomedicine cancer treatment involving the injection of tiny nanoparticles carrying compounds that can poison cancerous cells has many benefits. This so-called photodynamic therapy (PDT) is non-toxic and it doesn't involve invasive surgery. A team led by Jan van Hest from Eindhoven University of Technology in collaboration with researchers from China and the UK have designed a new PDT nanoparticle that attack cancerous cells in a novel way: they enter cells and shut down their power stations—their mitochondria—making the therapy much more effective. This new research has been published in Angewandte Chemie. Imagine a city powered by a group...

Enlarge Image Bypassing the guard. To avoid destruction by a wary immune system, nanoparticles must get past macrophages like the one shown here. Credit: Hemera/Thinkstock It's a popular goal in nanotechnology these days: using tiny particles as containers to ferry drugs to tumors, among other targets. But immune sentries called macrophages quickly spot foreign invaders and gobble them up. Now, a team of Pennsylvania researchers has found a way to give particles a molecular "passport" that gets them past the sentries in mice, where the particles then deliver their lethal cargo to tumors and help destroy them. That success...