Chinese scientists fighting cancer with new technology
Chinese scientists have designed a drug delivery platform that fights cancer like a microscopic aircraft carrier by finding tumour cells and releasing medicine to attack them.
Chinese scientists fighting cancer with new technology
2T2C: Talent, Technology, Capital, Cognition

Chinese scientists fighting cancer with new technology

Photo: iStock
Eurasia 29/06/2023 16:00

Chinese scientists have designed a drug delivery platform that fights cancer like a microscopic aircraft carrier by finding tumour cells and releasing medicine to attack them, South China Morning Post reported.

It is an advanced and intelligent therapy for tumours with the potential for clinical applications because it can inhibit tumour growth, promote the body’s immune response and prevent cancer cell metastasis – the spread of cancer cells to another part of the body – at the same time, according to South China Morning Post.

The research is led by Shi Xiangyang and Cao Xueyan of the Shanghai Engineering Research Centre of Nano-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at Donghua University in Shanghai. They have been focusing on using nano-biotechnology to diagnose and treat cancer for more than a decade.

The team built its “aircraft carrier” based on a polymer that resembles a tree’s branches and has a controllable shape and size and good biocompatibility. Using the polymer as a deck, the Donghua University researchers mounted other particles as “weapons” onto the carrier, SCMP noted.

Shi and his team modified the surface of the polymer with targeting agent LyP-1 peptide, which can specifically recognise and bind to a protein that is abnormally overexpressed on various types of tumour cells, especially breast cancers. They said as a result, the nanoplatform could navigate and find its bomb target.

Then nanoparticles – including copper sulphide (CuS) and DMXAA, a drug that cuts tumour vascular cells – are incorporated in the cabin of the polymer as a weapon, according to SCMP.

One of the major strengths of the team’s work is the synergy between the different weapons aboard the “aircraft carrier”.

While CuS and DMXAA kill tumour cells in their own way, jointly they trigger the body’s immune system to fight the cancer by inducing immunogenic cell death and regulating immune responses.

There were an estimated 19.3 million new cases worldwide in 2020, with female breast cancer the most common cancer diagnosed, according to International Agency for Research on Cancer statistics. Conventional treatments cannot completely eradicate cancer cells and they may damage normal tissue. A main reason for the failure of cancer treatment is the extensive metastasis of the disease through the patient’s blood and lymphatic vessels.

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