The research, which have helped the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, for its acronym in French), and King's College London, was published in the journal Nanoscale 'and form Delivery of the project Radioactivity (Raddel) within the Marie-Curie Initial Training Network (ITN), which is coordinated by the researcher Gerard Tobias program.
Raddel aims to develop new diagnostic tools and therapy nanocapsules based on established carbon nanotube, carrying compounds useful in biomedical inside.
Carbon nanotubes have applications as their use in composite materials for sports products already on the market. They are also attractive as nanoplatforms in the field of biomedicine, with applications ranging from prosthetics to transport drugs.
In this field, use as carrier of radionuclides for diagnostic imaging applications and has been, until now, very limited. "The ability to combine diagnosis and therapy is not exclusive of nanotubes and is being explored with other nanocarriers" said Tobias, while recognizing that in most cases, both the agent diagnosis and therapy are anchored to the surface nanoparticle.
The great advantage of nanotubes is that, being tubular, having a hollow inside in which can be introduced radioactive compounds, so that they do not interact with the biological environment, and can be used outside walls to anchor molecules target, which makes them safe and versatile tools, says the researcher.
Belén Ballesteros, scientist at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, adds that the possibility of incorporating compounds within nanotubes is of special interest in the case of compounds that 'a priori' are toxic to the body, since they reduce the toxicity of same.
The draft amendments were combined in the outer and inner surfaces of the nanotubes to design a radiation therapy against cancer. To evaluate the effectiveness of the system recognizing cancer cells, tests were made with primary human glioblastoma cells, modified to overexpress the epidermal growth factor receptor.
Results in preclinical trials have shown that the nanocarrier is capable of selectively accumulate within cancer cells, without any cytotoxicity was observed.
According to the researchers, these findings open the door to development of new nanomaterials for biomedical applications in the field of cancer treatment and diagnosis.
Currently, the consortium is testing 'in vivo' to study the behavior inside the nanotube, radioactive equivalent compounds.
On the future of these tools, Tobias predicted that all Raddel research project has focused on preclinical studies, and have obtained very promising results. Although the project comes to an end, the idea of the consortium is to get additional funding to advance the development of these nanocapsules to reach clinical use, with people.