Nanoparticle-decorated cells power novel approach to cancer therapy
Friday, September 17, 2010 - 11:14
in Health & Medicine
Clinical trials using patients' own immune cells to target tumors have yielded promising results. However, this approach usually works only when patients also receive large doses of drugs designed to help immune cells multiply rapidly, and those drugs have life-threatening side effects. Now a team of MIT engineers has devised a way to deliver the necessary drugs by smuggling them within nanoparticles that are attached to the cells sent in to fight the tumor. As a result, the immune cell stimulating drug reaches only its intended targets, greatly reducing the risk to the patient.