At The University of Texas at Arlington researchers are investigating using microwaves to energize photosensitive nanoparticles as a modality for killing neoplastic cells. Previously, for medical applications light has been generally used to get such particles to activate their cell killing particles. That’s because light doesn’t damage tissue, but it also doesn’t penetrate very far, a serious limitation. The approach has been effectively limited to studying skin cancer applications, but microwaves can go much deeper and may make photodynamic therapy applicable throughout the body.
The scientists used copper-cysteamine (Cu-Cy) nanoparticles and microwaves to generate heat and copper ions that in turn produced singlet oxygen, a killer of cellular mitochondria. The microwaves can be focused quite narrowly to target deeply seated tumors while avoiding a lot of nearby tissue. The team tested the technique both in vitro and in vivo, demonstrating the technique’s proof of concept in a laboratory environment.
Study in Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology: A New Modality for Cancer Treatment—Nanoparticle Mediated Microwave Induced Photodynamic Therapy…
