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Medicine Technology

MIT Injects Nanotubes To Help Fight Cancer 58

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-i-want-a-shrink-ray dept.
CWmike writes to tell us that researchers at MIT have found a way to wrap nanotube sensors in DNA to detect the results of chemotherapy. The sensors are able to detect whether the drugs are attacking their targets or healthy cells. "Cancer researchers have long been trying to figure out a way to better deliver drugs to cancer cells without blasting surrounding cells as well. The Stanford researchers devised a way to use single-walled carbon nanotubes as targeted medicinal delivery vehicles. By better targeting the chemotherapy, less of the drug needs to be injected into the patient for cancer treatment. And that would reduce the side effects of chemotherapy treatment, such as nausea, hair loss, weight loss and fatigue."
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MIT Injects Nanotubes To Help Fight Cancer More

MIT Injects Nanotubes To Help Fight Cancer

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  • Umm. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday December 15, 2008 @05:41PM (#26125109)

    Didn't Carbon Nanotube been found to cause cancer [slashdot.org]?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by orclevegam ( 940336 )
      Apparently that's only if you inhale them.

    • Re:Umm. (Score:4, Informative)

      by snl2587 ( 1177409 ) on Monday December 15, 2008 @05:46PM (#26125175)

      That was my first thought when I read this. From the article, though:

      The sensors, which can detect chemotherapy drugs as well as toxins and free radicals, are carbon nanotubes that scientists have wrapped in DNA so they can be safely injected into living tissue, according to a release from the university.

      I guess the wrapping process eliminates the danger? At least the nanotubes don't end up free-floating.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by UDGags ( 756537 )
      If you inhale it, which is different then injecting a cell on dish with a nanotube....

    • Re:Umm. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sdpuppy ( 898535 ) on Monday December 15, 2008 @06:00PM (#26125355)
      All depends on how things are applied. If you inhale water, you can die.

      If you eat Potassium Chloride, you get nutrition. If you inject it, you die.

      If you eat Lead Acetate, you hurt your nervous system. If you apply it to your hair, you "comb away the gray"

      If you eat Tallium Acetate, you get poisoned, if you wipe on your skin, you get rid of the stubble.

      Oh yeah, and it depends on form: You eat Sodium your mouth catches fire, you eat sodium chloride and you get hypertension.

      • Oh yeah, and it depends on form: You eat Sodium your mouth catches fire, you eat sodium chloride and you get hypertension.

        And hypertension never tasted so good! ;)

      • If you eat Potassium Chloride, you get nutrition. If you inject it, you die.

        Either way, you [blackcatsystems.com] get [orau.org] radioactive [cns-snc.ca].

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by shbazjinkens ( 776313 )

      Didn't Carbon Nanotube been found to cause cancer?

      Only of certain radii and lengths similar to asbestos. I visited SouthWest nanotechnologies and they said they have the ability to control both of those in their process, I'm sure many other processes have that ability as well. See verification of that here [swentnano.com].

    • It takes a thief to catch a thief (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      old proverb

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by qw0ntum ( 831414 )
      My thoughts exactly. I'd imagine that if used in a controlled manner, the risk of damaging healthy cells is minimized. And, since the nanotubes here are being used to deliver medicine to cancer cells, the tubes ability to damage cell material probably doesn't matter that much.

    • Didn't Carbon Nanotube been found to cause cancer [slashdot.org]?

      Doesn't everything cause cancer these days?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrEasy ( 559739 )
        That's a Joe Jackson song [youtube.com].

      • Our natural metabolic processes create carcinogens and other chemicals that damage cells, cause aging, etc. These things really are unavoidable (although there are still things which will cause cancer more than others.

        We're just not built to last... which is only to be expected - evolutionarily anything that extends your lifespan after procreation is a bonus, but won't be selected for if it negatively affects your ability to spawn a new generation (e.g. delays your being able to do so in return for longer

    • Never heard of oncological homeopathy?

  • After 30 years of reading science news, I'm not holding my breath for cancer. The facts are pretty much the same. If you get small cell lung cancer, you have a 90% chance of dying. John Wayne died of it, and if you get it, you will too.

    Bone cancer, pancreatic cancer, all of those are pretty much fatal as well.

    Others are not so fatal, but early treatment matters. Breast cancer is one. If you get a cancer that you can and do survive, you'll probably have lifelong health problems as a result, as much from the treatment as the cancer itself, and you won't ever really be completely cured.

    • Re:I'm not holding my breath... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 15, 2008 @06:02PM (#26125387)

      What's your point? We're all going to die someday. Should we just give up?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Hordeking ( 1237940 )
        As age increases, the probability of death approaches 1.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by deroby ( 568773 )

          Then again,
          statistically, very few people aged 100 or more die, so all you have to do is get that old and you're safe !!!

          • 100% of people aged 100 or more have died or will die.

            • Technically you can't prove that all of them will die - that's in the future and it only takes one of them being an immortal freak of nature to prove you wrong.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by deroby ( 568773 )

              Agreed, but it reminded me of a joke where an insurance-salesman blames his apprentice for selling a life-insurance to a 100-year old and the apprentice retorts that statistically spoken very few 100+ years old die !

              (yes, it's an old & silly joke, and probably didn't come over very well either... )

              • When I was in college, my roommate and I managed to prove that in order to die, one has to live forever. Basically, it started with two premises: Xeno's Paradox, and the question of "If I get scared half to death twice, do I die?". We simplified a lot, but basically we ended up concluding that in order to be scared all the way to death, one would have to be scared half to death an infinite number of times. Of course, this would take an infinite amount of time. Therefore, to be scared all the way to death, o

    • Re:I'm not holding my breath... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sdpuppy ( 898535 ) on Monday December 15, 2008 @06:05PM (#26125431)
      Come on now! In the past, breast cancer was pretty much a death sentence. Now it is one of the more "curable" cancers.

      Same is true for many other forms. Cure and/or survival rates have been going up, even for the previous "incurable" forms.

    • Re:I'm not holding my breath... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bwcarty ( 660606 ) on Monday December 15, 2008 @06:34PM (#26125793)

      If you get a cancer that you can and do survive, you'll probably have lifelong health problems as a result, as much from the treatment as the cancer itself, and you won't ever really be completely cured.

      As a cancer survivor going on five years now, I wouldn't necessarily say others should expect health problems as the result of their treatment. The chemo I went through was cardiotoxic, but if you're smart and dedicated, you can mitigate the risk for long term problems.

      I've become a fairly avid runner in the past few years as a way of keeping my heart strong. The last time I went in for a checkup, my bp was a very good 112/67, and I have better cardio conditioning than ever. I'll need it since I'm going to be running a marathon in a little over 3 months.

      That said, here's my plug for charitiable donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society [teamintraining.org]. Every bit helps! Chemo and radiation suck; help fund the research towards curing blood cancers! :)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kandela ( 835710 )
      John Wayne's not dead, he's frozen...

  • Bender: Yo, old guy. Why do we need to use those tiny microdroids? Can't you just shrink us?
    Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Oh, my, no. That would require extremely tiny atoms, and have you priced those lately? I'm not made of money. Leave me alone!

  • Whodathunkit? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That the cure for cancer was a series of nanotubes?

  • Stanford != MIT (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tkohler ( 806572 )
    "CWmike writes to tell us that researchers at MIT"

    "The Stanford researchers devised a way to use single-walled carbon nanotubes as targeted medicinal delivery vehicles."

    TFA says both schools (as well as UCSD) are working on it...as the father of someone undergoing chemo, I say: Good for them.

  • And that would reduce the side effects of chemotherapy treatment, such as nausea, hair loss, weight loss and fatigue."

    Or, the patient could use 100% safe marijuana. Hmmm... ingest a harmless plant that grows anywhere and everywhere, or get injected with electronics and DNA. Hmmm... Apparently nobody in the medical community has heard of the good 'ol "KISS" acronym.

    • Re:Alternative... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bmwm3nut ( 556681 ) on Monday December 15, 2008 @07:20PM (#26126317)
      The point of this is to be able to use less chemo with the nano tubes, not using the nano tubes as a treatment for the side effects. If you can get away with less chemo, then the side effects will be less, and that's always a good thing. I took more drugs to deal with the side effects of the chemo than the chemo itself (and no, the pot didn't help me). Anything that can make treatment more bearable is great.
    • I don't think breathing in the smoke of anything burning is going to be "harmless" to your system.
  • I've heard this for a while, and it was in popsci a month or two ago.

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