One of the most promising applications in the emerging field of nanomedicine is cancer treatment.
The ability to target individual cells provides safer and more effective treatment than current approaches like chemotherapy in which healthy cells become collateral damage in the effort to knock out cancerous tumors. This potential has again been demonstrated by scientists at Rice University who have developed a way to “blow up” individual diseased cells using lasers and gold nanoparticles.
“Single-cell targeting is one of the most touted advantages of nanomedicine, and our approach delivers on that promise with a localized effect inside an individual cell,” said Rice physicist Dmitri Lapotko, the lead researcher on the project. “The idea is to spot and treat unhealthy cells early, before a disease progresses to the point of making people extremely ill.”
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