Mother Nature talks nanotech: cancer drugs | Holly Cave

In a new series about nanotechnology, Mother Nature goes head-to-head with a scientist. This week: cancer drugsNanoparticles – particles as little as a millionth of a millimetre wide made from materials such as polymers, metals and graphene – have properties and behaviours that are being used to carry drugs and target them at cancer cells. So tell me: what's your beef? Well that's typical, isn't it? I come up with a simple way to keep you humans from completely overpopulating the planet without too much fuss (epidemics and natural disasters are so OTT), and scientists have to go meddling. Not that interfering is anything new to you lot …Isn't that a bit harsh? You'll be the ones who'll come crying back to me when it all goes toxic - and I mean that literally.Don't play that card. Have you been watching too much Star Trek? Nanoparticles aren't going to assimilate us all into grey goo! All I'm saying is that letting loose nanoparticles – so tiny they can cross biological membranes and enter cells – inside the human body sounds highly suspicious.We do extensive clinical trials. Don't have much faith, do you? I try not to pay much attention, but at least they keep scientists occupied for years at a time. It gives me room to decide what I'm going to hit them with next.And anyway, binding cancer drugs such as TNF-alpha to the surface of gold nanoparticles may actually reduce toxicity. The nanoparticle hides the drug from attack by the immune system, and its size means it ...
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