Scientists from the ITMO University in St. Petersburg have created a multifunctional material for melanoma therapy by heating. The development slows the growth of the new education by more than 65%, the press service of the university reported.
"ITMO scientists have proposed a simple and rapid way to synthesize gold plasmonic nanodiamonds. These hybrid nanomaterials can potentially be used in melanoma therapy by heating. The new materials are able to perform two tasks at the same time - to heat the cancerous tumor and measure its temperature. Experiments on laboratory animals show - after the introduction of plasmonic nanodiamonds into the tumor and their subsequent heating, the growth of the neoplasm slows down by 65.22%", the announcement states.
As noted by the university, to fight melanoma, doctors combine different types of therapy, including the use of local heating of the tumor, which destroys the protein structure and destroys the cancer cell. At the same time, it is very important to monitor the degree of heating so that there are no products of cell decay that can cause a recurrence of the disease. Different techniques are used for this purpose - fluorescent quantum dots, Raman or scanning probe spectroscopy - but they all have drawbacks and can damage living cells.
Therefore, ITMO scientists have developed a nanomaterial that can solve two tasks at the same time - local heating and temperature measurement. The development represents nanodiamonds with two types of coating: in the first case, the surface is covered with a dense gold shell, and in the second case, it is covered with dispersed gold nanoparticles and a layer of silicon dioxide. The latter protects the nanodiamond from external charges and helps to measure the temperature more accurately. The technique is easy to use as it requires only one laser for heating and thermal measurements. The new method also makes it possible to build gold nanoparticles of the right size and thus change their ability to heat. I BGNES
