Nanotech Robots Developed to Fight Cancer

On Sunday, March 21, 2010, a group of United States researchers released their findings in the journal Nature. The study offers early proof that a new treatment approach of tiny nanoparticle robots can travel through a patient’s blood, into tumors and knock out an important cancer gene.

The technology called RNA interference or RNA stands for ribonucleic acid.

The collection of researchers came from pharmaceutical companies Alnylam, Merch, Pfizer, Novartic and Roche. They developed a way to manipulate RNA to block the genes that make disease-causing proteins. RNA targets include the proteins for cancer, blindness and AIDS.

“This is the first study to be able to go in there and show it’s doing its mechanism of action,” said Mark DavisMark Davis, a professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, who led the study. “We’re excited about it because there is a lot of skepticism whenever any new technology comes in.”

Davis’ approach has been to find the cancer cell and get inside, they break down, releasing small interfering RNAs or siRNAs that block a gene that makes a cancer growth protein called ribonucleotide reductase.

“In the particle itself, we’ve built what we call a chemical sensor,” Davis said by telephone to a Reuters reporter. “When it recognizes that it’s gone inside the cell, it says OK, now it’s time to disassemble and give off the RNA.”

The scientists have been encouraged by the results of clinical studies. Called a phase 1 clinical trial, patients with various types of tumors received doses of the targeted nanoparticles four times over 21 days in a 30-minute intravenous infusion.

Tumor samples taken from three people with melanoma showed the nanoparticles found their way inside tumor cells. Not only did the nanorobots find their targets, the team found evidence that the therapy had disabled ribonucleotide reductase, suggesting the RNA had done its job.

Davis did not comment on whether the therapy helped shrink tumors in the patients, but one patient did get a second cycle of treatment. In addition, Davis’ team did not say whether there were any side effects or safety concerns.

Davis plans to present the study at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in June 2010

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