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Good Brain Tumor Drugs Come In Small Packages
Tackling the most common pediatric brain cancer
Article via LabRoots
It isn’t easy to wrap the head around just how tiny nanoparticles are — a billionth of a meter in diameter. They may be small, but cancer researchers have high hopes that these drug-delivering particles could revolutionize the way we treat cancer.
Nanoparticles have many advantages over traditional approaches to treating cancer, such as chemotherapy and radiation: they have the potential to deliver more potent cancer-killing with fewer side effects. Their main benefit is that they can be designed to target a specific organ or tissue type. This means that the nanoparticles could (at least theoretically) hone in on the tumor, penetrate it, and deliver its cytotoxic cargo slowly over a period of time, leaving healthy tissues untouched.
A recent study has brought forward more encouraging results to support the potential of nanoparticle cancer therapies further. A team of scientists led by UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Timothy R. Gershon was looking for new ways to treat medulloblastomas. These malignant brain tumors — the most common pediatric brain tumor — form in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls bodily functions such as movement and balance.
