Using nanoparticles in medical treatment is becoming a high-tech way to get treatment right to the area of disease. In Korea, at Korea University, researchers have found a way to attach a protein to gold particles that are just two nanometers in size. The proteins are then injected into a patient where they naturally seek out cancer cells and stick fast to them.
Using a magnetic field, the gold particles are heated up, and this heat destroys the cancer cells. In a mouse model, using animals that were engineered to have breast cancer, tumors were destroyed within 18 days after the particles injecting the particles. The gold particles have yet to be tested on humans because the gold remains in the bloodstream, but the new research has dealt with that by using nanoparticles of gold that are tiny enough for the body to emit. The team hopes to begin clinical trials soon