Nanotechnology is proving to have endless possibilities, some of which seem so futuristic that it's hard to believe. The war on cancer is about to take on new troops. Tiny Magnets known as 'Nano Magnets' are so small that thousands can fit one the head of a pin!

This research, developed at Nottingham, Sheffield and Keele universities in the UK, is still in its early stage, but scientists have begun testing on animals and believe that the first human trials are only one or two years away.

To get rid of cancerous cells, the magnets are injected into a drug also containing human white blood cells.

Using human cells (gene therapy) has already been around for sometime but the numbers of white cells finding the tumours hasn't been enough to be really effective, but teamed up with the Nano Magnets, they can find AND destroy them as it delivers the drug deeper into the cancer cell.
                                                                                                      A tiny nano-magnet particle
                                                                                                      - 1000's can fit on a pin head

Once the drug and magnets have been injected, the doctor places a magnet over the tumour, forcing the magnets along with white blood cells to the tumour to fight the cancerous cells. While this sounds dangerous, researchers are confident that the use of tiny metal particles inside the body will not pose as a health risk. This is because only small numbers are used in the process.

'The use of nano-magnets could herald a new era in gene therapy,' says Professor Lewis. 'This new technique could also be used to help deliver therapeutic genes in other diseases such as arthritic joints or damaged heart tissue.'

Professor John Dobson of Keele University says that, "We have shown we can get more of the treatment into the tumour using magnets... cancer medicine is moving away from a sledgehammer approach to careful targeting of tumours with drugs, so that the attack on the disease is concentrated."

The current method of treating cancer is by chemotherapy - injecting a drug which kills ALL body cells, but just kills the cancer cells quicker ... not exactly ideal and it has lots of side-effects. So roll on the killer nano-magnets!



By Alastair Wadlow

Information sourced from:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/textbased/health/article-1033137/Tiny-magnets-help-win-war-cancer.html/


Images:
cms.mumbaimirror.com
www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/magneticnano.jpg (original source - The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia)