Nanoparticle offers hope for future cancer treatment

A ‘smart’, biodegradeable nanoparticle has been created that can be used to target and treat tumours.

It is hoped the nanoparticle, which uses heat and light to find these tumours, will boost the effectiveness of photothermal therapy — using electromagnetic radiation for the treatment of medical ailments including cancer.

Dr Zheng, senior scientist at the University of Toronto and lead researcher, said: “Our smart nanoparticle is super cool. It can absorb light, generate heat and ablate the tumour. It's a thermal sensor and once it reaches the desired ablation temperature of 55°C, it becomes invisible allowing the light to move deeper into more tumour-rich areas and repeat the treatment process.”

Photothermal therapy involves the injection of nanoparticles into the body that attach themselves to cancerous cells. Electromagnetic radiation, usually in the form of light, is then applied to the affected area, exciting the nanoparticles and causing the tumour to disintegrate.

Named photothermal enhancing auto-regulating liposomes (PEARLs), the nanoparticles were shown to be effective in phantom models — computer simulations of the human body. Scientists are excited about PEARLs as they solve two issues currently preventing the advance of photothermal therapy — overheating of tissue and the inability to ablate larger tumour volumes as the light stops travelling once it is absorbed.

Zheng said: “The result is a promising new way to heat and ablate larger volumes of tumour with minimal damage to surrounding tissues in a controlled and precise way. The next step is to conduct pre-clinical studies to test the concept further."

The study has been labelled as a very ‘important paper’ and can be found in Angewandte Chemie.