A Novel Method for Producing Functional Nanoparticles for Medical Applications

纳米技术的一个令人兴奋的方面是它的多学科性，跨越了物理、化学和生物学之间的障碍。最近，人们一直在探索新的癌症疗法，这些疗法传统上使用有毒药物，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5000倍）的磁性纳米颗粒附着在定位并仅附着在癌细胞上的“靶向分子”上。一旦放置到位，振荡的外部磁场加热颗粒及其附着的细胞，从而杀死它们，而不损害健康组织。这种温和的治疗被称为“魔弹”方法，在早期临床试验中已被证明原则上有效，但由于可用的纳米颗粒不能产生足够的热量而受到阻碍。莱斯特大学物理学和天文学的凝聚态物理小组最近取得了一项突破，他们开发了一种新方法，可以生产高磁性生物相容性纳米颗粒悬浮液，每个颗粒产生的热量是现有流体的5-10倍。这笔拨款将支持物理、化学和莱斯特综合医院之间的合作，以开发这项技术，将纳米颗粒与靶向分子结合，并在体外测试新的悬浮液的肿瘤杀伤性能。

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.