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Jennifer West Naomi Halas Eugene Zubarev 12 Cancer Professors Jennifer West and Naomi Halas investigate the therapeutic applications of gold nanoshells, nanoparticles with tunable optical properties. Nanoshells can be designed to strongly absorb or scatter light in the near infrared where tissue and blood are relatively transparent. In a cancer therapy application, nanoshells are designed to absorb light and convert the energy to heat for tumor destruction. By conjugating antibodies or peptides to the nanoshell surfaces, binding of nanoshells can be targeted to cancerous cells, and subsequent exposure to near infrared light results in specific and localized destruction of the cancerous cells. Associate Professor Eugene Zubarev’s laboratory researchers concentrated delivery of traditional chemotherapeutics by nanoparticle delivery. Paclitaxel is very effective at slowing the growth of tumors in some patients by slowing down cell replication. However, paclitaxel as a general inhibitor of cell division can affect healthy cells that tend to divide rapidly, leading to hair loss and suppressed immune function. Zubarev’s new delivery system centers on a tiny ball of gold that’s barely wider than a strand of DNA. The paclitaxel is tethered to the gold nanoparticle so that the specific region of the drug binds with microtubules. This region of the drug fits neatly into the cell’s support structure, like a chemical ”key” fitting into a lock. A single gold nanoparticle can hold up to 70 paclitaxel molecules.
Oral cancer afflicts more than 300,000 people a year, including 35,000 in the United States alone. The five-year survival rate is 60 percent, but if oral cancer is detected early, that rate rises to 90 percent. Professor John McDevitt and his team are working to create an inexpensive chip that can differentiate premalignancies from the 95 percent of lesions that will not become cancerous. The minimally invasive technique would deliver results in 15 minutes instead of several days, as lab-based diagnostics do now. Instead of an invasive, painful biopsy, the new procedure requires just a light brush of the lesion on the cheek or tongue with an instrument that looks like a toothbrush. Professor Lon Wilson’s research group, in collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, is investigating the use of nanoparticle and nanotubes for radiofrequency (RF) induced thermal ablation of cancerous cells and tumors. When carbon nanotubes and gold nanorods are bombarded with radio waves of a specific frequency, the RF energy is converted to heat, which “cooks’‘ the cancerous cells. RF ablation is of particular interest because the tissue penetration depth is significantly greater than near-infrared light, paving the way for noninvasive bone cancer treatment. Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum focuses on translating research that integrates advances in nanotechnology and molecular imaging with microfabrication technologies to develop optical imaging systems that are inexpensive and provide point-of-care diagnosis. When used with contrast agents, these rugged and portable optical imaging systems detect molecular signatures of precancer, assess tumor margins and monitor a patient’s response to therapy. Over the past few years, Richards-Kortum and collaborators have translated these technologies from North America to both low- and mediumresource developing countries (Botswana, India, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil). John McDevitt Lon Wilson Rebecca Richards-Kortum 13
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