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12-01 :: January 2012

nanotimes News in Brief

51

An efficient thermal ablation agent was developed by confining gold nanoshells into nanopores of silicon mi- croparticles. Mauro Ferrari and co-workers show how near-infrared laser light triggers enhanced heat generation of gold nanoshells, by exploiting nanoscale cooperative effects inside microparticles. A multifold increase in ther- mal therapy efficacy was achieved for breast cancer in cell culture and in animal tumor models. © AHM

“The hollow gold particles we load into the porous silicon must be the right size and have the correct- sized space inside them to interact with the infrared light we are using,” he said. “But the wavelength of infrared we use will have to change depending on where the tumor is. If it‘s close to the skin, we can use shorter wavelengths. Deeper inside the body, we have to use longer wavelengths of infrared to pene- trate the tissue. The hollow space of the gold parti- cles must be modified in response to that.”

Both silicon and gold have low toxicity profiles in the human body, and are popular materials in current

investigations using medical nanotechnology. Silicon is steadily broken down by physiological processes into an acid that is removed through the kidneys. And gold is chemically inert.

Haifa Shen, Jian You, Guodong Zhang, Arturas Ziemys, Qingpo Li, Litao Bai, Xiaoyong Deng, Donald R. Erm, Xu- ewu Liu, Chun Li and Mauro Ferrari: Cooperative, Nano- particle-Enabled Thermal Therapy of Breast Cancer, In: Advanced Healthcare Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 1, Pages 84- 89, DOI:10.1002/adhm.201100005: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adhm.201100005

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