Scientists at ITMO University in St. Petersburg have created a multifunctional material for melanoma therapy by heating. The development slows the growth of the neoplasm by more than 65%, the university's press service reported.
"ITMO scientists have proposed a simple and fast way to synthesize gold plasmonic nanodiamonds. These hybrid nanomaterials could potentially be used in melanoma therapy by heating. The new materials are able to perform two tasks simultaneously - heating the cancerous tumor and measuring 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 is slowed down by 65.22%," - stated in the message.
As noted at 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 decay products of the cell that can cause the disease to recur. Different techniques are used for this purpose - fluorescent quantum dots, Raman or scanning probe spectroscopy - but all have drawbacks and can damage living cells.
ITMO scientists have therefore developed a nanomaterial that can solve two tasks simultaneously - local heating and temperature measurement. The development consists of nanodiamonds with two types of coating: in the first case, the surface is wrapped with a dense gold shell, and in the second case it is covered with scattered gold nanoparticles and a layer of silica. 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 an appropriate size and thus vary their ability to heat up. | BGNES
