21st Century Innovative Technologies and Developments as also discoveries, curiosity ( insolite)...

(Nanowerk News) Magnetic nanoparticles can open the blood-brain barrier and deliver molecules directly to the brain, say researchers from the University of Montreal, Polytechnique Montréal, and CHU Sainte-Justine ("Remote control of the permeability of the blood–brain barrier by magnetic heating of nanoparticles: A proof of concept for brain drug delivery"). This barrier runs inside almost all vessels in the brain and protects it from elements circulating in the blood that may be toxic to the brain.

The research is important as currently 98% of therapeutic molecules are also unable to cross the blood-brain barrier.
“The barrier is temporary opened at a desired location for approximately 2 hours by a small elevation of the temperature generated by the nanoparticles when exposed to a radio-frequency field,” explained first author and co-inventor Seyed Nasrollah Tabatabaei. “Our tests revealed that this technique is not associated with any inflammation of the brain.

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Nanotechnology researchers produce new anti-cancer drug from turmeric

The compound is made of curcumin found in the extract of turmeric, and has desirable physical and chemical stability and prevents the proliferation of cancer cells.In this drug, curcumin with high efficiency (approximately 87%) was loaded in the polymeric nanocarrier, and it created a spherical structure with the size of 140 nm.

The drug has high physical and chemical stability. The drug was used successfully in laboratory conditions in the treatment of a type of aggressive tumor in the central nervous system, called glioblastoma (GBM).

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A new method of microscopic drug delivery that could greatly improve the treatment of deadly pancreatic cancer has been proven to work in mice at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Researchers are designing tiny particles to act as medicine.

The particles are coated with waterlike molecules that allow them to travel inside the body without being detected by the immune system, Farokhzad said. Their surfaces contain molecules that provide them with a "GPS" to seek out abnormal cancer cells.

Once they find a cancer cell, the particles stick, and like a Trojan horse, the cancer cells take them inside where they can release medicine that's toxic to the cell, Farokhzad said. [Watch the World Science Festival Live.]

In a study published last year in Science Translational Medicine, Farokhzad and colleagues showed that, in people, the nanoparticles delivered a much higher dose of medicine to cancer cells than to other cells in the body. Follow-up studies will test the effectiveness of the drug at treating tumors.

Un étudiant de 16 ans de Calgary au Canada a reçu mardi un prix pour ses recherches sur une thérapie utilisant des nano-particules d'or qui, injectées à un cancéreux et chauffées, tuent les cellules malades, a annoncé le laboratoire français...

Nanomedicines consisting of nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to specific tissues and cells offer new solutions for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Understanding the interdependency of physiochemical properties of nanomedicines, in correlation to their biological responses and functions, is crucial for their further development of as cancer-fighters.

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- http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=Cancer

A luminescent nanoparticle to advance photodynamic cancer therapy

A University of Texas at Arlington physicist working to create a luminescent nanoparticle to use in security-related radiation detection may have instead happened upon an advance in photodynamic cancer therapy.Wei Chen, professor of physics and co-director of UT Arlington’s Center for Security Advances Via Applied Nanotechnology, was testing a copper-cysteamine complex created in his lab when he discovered unexplained decreases in its luminescence, or light emitting power, over a time-lapse exposure to X-rays.

Looking further, he found that the nanoparticles, called Cu-Cy, were losing energy as they emitted singlet oxygen – a toxic byproduct that is used to damage cancer cells in photodynamic therapy.

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Nanodiamonds to help target cancer cells

Nanodiamond particles, or nanodiamonds (NDs), have emerged as a promising candidate for use in biomedical imaging and for different biomedical applications such as drug carrier platform. They show decreased cytotoxicity in comparison to other NPs, and can follow their fate by fluorescence imaging as a result of point defects in the diamond structure.

Particles that deliver vaccines directly to mucosal surfaces could defend against many infectious diseases.

A tiny sponge in the boodstream could stop poisons from bacterial infections and snakes -- and might solve the problem of antibiotic resistance.