Nanotube bombs kill cancer

October 17, 2005

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Scientists and medical professionals often use violent imagery to depict techniques of destroying cancer cells. A type of cancer-killing carbon nanotubes more than lives up to the language.

Researchers from the University of Delaware have found a way to detonate nanotubes that have been absorbed by cancer cells to blow up the cells. The microscopic explosions kill cells containing the nanotubes but leave surrounding cells intact.

Carbon nanotubes are rolled-up sheets of carbon atoms and are extremely small. Single-walled carbon nanotubes are typically one nanometer in diameter, or about 5,000 times smaller than a red blood cell.

The detonation nanotubes are filled with water molecules. When the nanotubes are exposed to laser light, the water molecules vaporize, which produces enough pressure to blow up the tubes and any cancer cells in the immediate vicinity. Other researchers have developed ways of causing cancer cells to absorb nanotubes, which would be required to use the method for treating patients.

The explosion method has a distinct advantage over using carbon nanotubes to deliver anti-cancer drugs to cancer cells, according to the researchers. The explosions destroy the nanotubes along with the cancer cells, greatly reducing the risk that the tubes themselves could cause problems in the body.

Scientists have previously detonated carbon nanotubes, but only in air (see Light flashes fire up nanotubes, TRN May 1/8, 2002) by exposure to flashes of light.

Technology Research News: www.trnmag.com