Cooking cancer cells
Carbon nanotubes, used with near-infrared light and antibodies, hold promise for treating malignancies
Covered in antibodies and bathed in laser light, carbon nanotubes kill malignant cells with heat. The new technique may one day enable physicians to target and kill cancerous growth without surgery, radiation or chemotherapy.
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After the team shone near-infrared light over a cell culture with antibody-coated carbon nanotubes attached to cancer cells, the diseased cells died, while non-cancerous cells went unharmed, researchers report online June 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If this technique works in living tissue, “it might be possible to cook tumors rather than to surgically remove them,” says Ellen Vitetta, an immunologist at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas and coauthor of the new study.