New Atlas

Medical Audio available

New chemo drug keeps platinum nanoparticles on target for liver cancer

Michael Irving February 15, 2019

Chemotherapy drugs are effective at killing cancer cells – but they’re also pretty good at killing healthy cells. Making these drugs more selective for tumors is a key area of research, and now a team at ETH Zurich has found a way to keep a common treatment – platinum nanoparticles – on target.

Researchers have found a way to make platinum nanoparticles more effective against liver cancer, without harming ...

Medical Audio available

Novel nano-gel promises to help kill leftover cancer cells after surgery

Rich Haridy December 10, 2018

The first step in many cancer treatments is to surgically remove the tumor, however this often isn’t enough. As long as a few cancer cells remain the tumors often grow back, but a new innovative spray gel, administered onto a cancerous site during surgery, may help prevent the tumors recurring.

The gel helps the immune system target and kill any cancer cells that remain after tumor-removal ...

Medical

Could silk and gold replace stitches and staples?

Ben Coxworth November 2, 2018

If you need to close up an injury or incision in human body tissue, you use sutures, staples or a surgical adhesive … right? Well, if technology that's currently being developed at Arizona State University gets commercialized, liquid silk combined with gold may eventually be a better way to go.

The LANS technology incorporates liquid silk obtained from silkworm cocoons

Science

Nanoparticles may be a silver bullet against brain-eating amoeba

Ben Coxworth October 25, 2018

Found in warm freshwater lakes, rivers and hot springs, Naegleria fowleri enters a person's body through their nose, then proceeds to kill them by eating their brain. Infections are rare, fortunately, and they may also soon be more treatable thanks to the use of silver nanoparticles.

The flagellate form of Naegleria fowleri

Medical

Nasal spray and ultrasound team up for direct-to-brain drug delivery

Michael Irving September 10, 2018

The blood-brain barrier is an effective shield against infection, but it’s not so helpful when you’re trying to get drugs in there. Nasal sprays could bypass the barrier, and now researchers have developed a way to use ultrasound pulses to drive the drugs to where in the brain they’re needed.

Drug nanoparticles could be delivered directly to the brain through a nasal spray, which is then ...

Medical

Superbugs might meet their match in oxygen weaponized by light

Michael Irving August 20, 2018

To avoid a future where once-routine procedures become life-threatening again, new ways to fight bacteria need to be developed. A new study has now shown oxygen can be weaponized against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, by way of nanoparticles activated by light.

Researchers have developed a new weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, where light is used to produce reactive ...

Health & Wellbeing

Titanium dioxide-based whitening treatments may be easier on the teeth

Ben Coxworth July 19, 2018

Regardless of what you may think of the practise of teeth-whitening, it appears to not just be a passing fad – and it can harm peoples' teeth. Scientists from China's Nanchang University are out to make it safer, with an experimental new technique.

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles have been shown to whiten teeth less harmfully than commonly-used hydrogen peroxide gel

Medical

How magnetized wire can detect cancer cells in your blood

Rich Haridy July 16, 2018

A fascinating cancer detection technique has been developed by scientists at Stanford University. The process involves a small magnetic wire being inserted into a vein where it attracts free-floating tumor cells in the blood.

A magnetic wire attracts free-floating tumor cells that have been magnetized by specially engineered nanoparticles

Medical

X-rays burst chemo-filled nanobubbles for targeted cancer drug delivery

Michael Irving July 15, 2018

Researchers at CNBP have developed a new targeted treatment for cancer. Chemotherapy drugs are wrapped in “nano-bubbles” called liposomes, which are then injected into the desired part of the body and made to release their payload on demand, by applying X-ray radiation.

A new potential cancer treatment uses nanobubbles called liposomes to deliver drugs right to a tumor, ...

Medical

Magnetic nanoparticles put the heat on cancer

Michael Irving June 27, 2018

Scientists are coming up with some creative ways to fight cancer. Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed new kinds of nanoparticles that can infiltrate, heat up and kill cancer cells more effectively and efficiently than similar methods.

A transmission electron microscope image of the zinc ferrite nanoparticles that can be triggered by a ...