Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Blowing up Cancer Cells

Remarkably creative and clever approach to attacking cancer ...

In the zebra-fish study, Lapotko and his collaborators at Rice directed antibody-tagged gold nanoparticles into the implanted cancer cells. A short laser pulse overheated the surface of the nanoparticles and evaporated a very thin volume of the surrounding medium to create small vapor bubbles that expanded and collapsed within nanoseconds; this left cells undamaged but generated a strong optical scattering signal that was bright enough to detect a single cancer cell.
A second, stronger pulse generated larger nanobubbles that exploded (or, as the researchers called it, "mechanically ablated") the target cell without damaging surrounding tissue in the zebra fish. Scattering of the laser light by the second "killer" bubble confirmed the cellular destruction.

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