New cancer-hunting nano-robots to seek and destroy tumours

It sounds like a scene from a science fiction novel – an army of tiny weaponised robots travelling around a human body, hunting down malignant tumours and destroying them from within. 

But research in Nature Communications today from the University of California Davis Cancer Centre shows the prospect of that being a realistic scenario may not be far off. Promising progress is being made in the development of a multi-purpose anti-tumour nanoparticle called "nanoporphyrin" that can help diagnose and treat cancers.

This year, cancer surpassed cardiovascular diseases to become the leading cause of death in Australia; 40,000 Australians died as a result of cancer last year. It's no wonder that scientists explore every possible technology to efficiently and safely diagnose and treat the disease. Nanotechnology is one such revolutionary cancer-fighting technology.

Nanoporphyrin is only 20-30 nanometres in size. If you want to get technical, it's a self-assembled micelle consisting of cross-linkable amphiphilic dendrimer molecules containing four porphyrins. Nanoporphyrin's small size gives it an intrinsic advantage as it can be engulfed by and accumulate in tumour cells, where it can act on two levels:

On the molecule level, nanoporphyrin can aid diagnosis by enhancing the contrast of tumour tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and dual modal PET-MRI. On the micelle level, nanoporphyrin can be loaded with anti-tumour drugs to kill malignant tissue.