Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have created a single nanoparticle that can be tracked by MRI in real time as it homes in on cancer cells, tags them with a fluorescent dye, and kills them with heat. The all-in-one particle is one of the first examples from a growing field called “theranostics” that develops technologies physicians can use to diagnose and treat diseases in a single procedure. “Some of the most essential questions in nanomedicine today are about biodistribution — where particles go inside the body and how they get there,” says study co-author Naomi Halas, PhD, Stanley C. Moore professor in electrical and computer engineering and professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at Rice. “Noninvasive tests for biodistribution will be enormously useful on the path to FDA approval, and this technique — adding MRI functionality to the particle you’re testing and using for therapy — is a very promising way of doing this.”
The all-in-one particles are based on nanoshells — particles Halas invented in the 1990s that are currently in human clinical trials for cancer treatment. Nanoshells harvest laser light that would normally pass harmlessly through the body and convert it into tumor-killing heat. To design the new particle, Halas partnered with Amit Joshi, PhD, assistant professor in BCM’s Division of Molecular Imaging, to modify nanoshells by adding a fluorescent dye that glows when struck by near-infrared (NIR) light. NIR light is invisible and harmless, so NIR imaging could provide doctors with a means of diagnosing diseases without surgery. Graduate student Rizia Bardhan found that dye molecules emitted 40 to 50 times more light if a tiny gap was left between them and the surface of the nanoshell. In the gap — just a few nanometers wide — Bardhan inserted a layer of iron oxide that would be detectable with MRI. The researchers also attached an antibody that lets the particles bind to the surface of breast and ovarian cancer cells.
So far, tests involve laboratory cell cultures, but the researchers say MRI tracking will be particularly advantageous as they move toward tests in animals and people. The next step is to destroy whole tumors in live animals, Joshi says, estimating that human clinical trials are at least two years away. The research was published online in Advanced Functional Materials.
Source: Bioscience Technology