Nanoimpellers Zap Cancer Cells From Within

April 14, 2008 -- A new nanodevice loaded with powerful cancer-killing drugs can operate inside a living cell to zap cancer cells in response to light.

The nanomachine, created by researchers in California, is called a nanoimpeller and is the first of its kind.

"We have developed a machine to deliver the cancer drugs only in the cancer cells and not normal cells," said Fuyuhiko Tamanoi, a study author and scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"Our research is the first demonstration of controlled and on-demand release of anticancer drugs using mechanized nanopartilces in living cells," said Tamanoi.

The nanoimpellers are actually tubes made of light-sensative silica. When light strikes the silica, tiny tails on the inside of the tubes wag back and forth, creating a current that propels the drugs out of their cyllindrical home.

The more light is directed at the silica, the more drugs they deliver.

For initial tests the researchers loaded their nanomachines with camptothecin, a chemotherapy drug commonly used to treat pancreatic and colon cancer. The nanoparticles were then injected into human cancer cells in vitro and taken up in the dark.