Nanoparticles fighting Cancer

So one of the few pages I do follow on Facebook is I F***ing Love Science! This page keeps me somewhat up to date on all things science, everything from chemistry to astrophysics. This page is a lot more informative than almost everything else on Facebook. One of the more recent articles posted on the page is Nanoparticles Deliver Three Cancer Drugs at Once which I found particularly interesting.

The idea of using nanoparticles still seems like science fiction thing of the future. However, recently a paper published in The Journal of American Chemical Society, researchers from MIT found a way to deliver multiple cancer drugs for treatment. This new method of cancer drug therapy is much healthier than traditional chemotherapy because the healthy cells in the targeted area are not affected by the nanoparticles. The even more incredible thing with the nanoparticles is that they perform even better when there are three or more cancer drugs as opposed to one or two drugs.
The researchers decided to take a new approach to building the nanoparticles. First attempts at nanoparticle delivery systems had the drug tucked inside the nanoparticle; however, this method only allowed one drug being delivered and was not very selective. The next attempts had the drug attached to the outside of the nanoparticle; this method allowed for multiple drugs but attaching them was much harder. The new method built the nanoparticle from the drugs themselves. Next a polymer chain was built around the drugs to protect them from bodily fluids. The drugs were released when UV light was shown on them and the polymer chain was then broken down.