A Novel Method for Producing Functional Nanoparticles for Medical Applications

一种生产医疗应用功能性纳米颗粒的新方法

• 批准号: G0800692/1
• 负责人: Chris Binns
• 金额: $ 13.25万
• 依托单位: University of Leicester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G0800692%2F1
• 关键词: Novel; Method; Producing; Functional; Nanoparticles

An exciting aspect of Nanotechnology is its multidisciplinarity that crosses barriers between physics, chemistry and biology. Recently it has been explored for new cancer therapies, which conventionally use toxic drugs resulting in a balancing act between harming the patient and treating the cancer. A nanotechnology-based approach is to use magnetic nanoparticles less than 10 nanometres across (5,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair) attached to ‘targeting molecules’ that locate and attach only to cancer cells. Once in place an oscillating external magnetic field heats the particles and their attached cells, thereby killing them, without harming healthy tissue. This gentle treatment is the so-called ‘magic bullet’ approach and has been shown to work in principle in early clinical trials but is hindered by the available nanoparticles not producing enough heat. In a recent breakthrough at Leicester, the Condensed Matter Physics group in Physics and Astronomy developed a new method of producing suspensions of highly magnetic bio-compatible nanoparticles that will generate 5-10 times as much heat per particle as existing fluids. The grant will support a collaboration between Physics, Chemistry and the Leicester General Hospital to develop the technology, conjugate the nanoparticles with targeting molecules and test the new suspensions for their tumour-killing performance in vitro.

纳米技术的一个令人兴奋的方面是它的多学科性，跨越物理，化学和生物学之间的障碍。最近，人们已经探索了新的癌症疗法，这些疗法通常使用有毒药物，从而在伤害患者和治疗癌症之间取得平衡。一种基于纳米技术的方法是使用直径小于10纳米（比人类头发宽度小5,000倍）的磁性纳米颗粒附着在“靶向分子”上，这些分子只定位并附着在癌细胞上。一旦到位，振荡的外部磁场加热颗粒及其附着的细胞，从而杀死它们，而不伤害健康组织。这种温和的治疗方法是所谓的“魔术子弹”方法，并已被证明在早期临床试验中原则上有效，但由于可用的纳米颗粒不能产生足够的热量而受到阻碍。在莱斯特最近的一项突破中，物理学和天文学中的凝聚态物理学小组开发了一种生产高磁性生物相容性纳米颗粒悬浮液的新方法，这种悬浮液将产生5-10倍于现有流体的热量。这笔赠款将支持物理，化学和莱斯特总医院之间的合作，以开发该技术，将纳米颗粒与靶向分子结合，并测试新悬浮液的体外肿瘤杀伤性能。