How Do Nanoparticles Work? Part One

OK, so y’all know I’m a science nerd, right? And there’s some really interesting research being done with nanoparticles to treat cancer. But I was always a little hazy on how exactly all of that worked. How did the nanoparticles find and target only the cancer cells and leave the regular cells untouched?

I came across an explanation and thought I would share. The size of the nanoparticles is what makes them work so well. Nanoparticles are usually between 10-100 nanometers (which is a billionth of a meter; i.e. pretty freaking small). But this size is still too big to penetrate a blood cell, which is one of the smallest cells in the human body. So the nanoparticles just kinda bounce off the red blood cells. Cancer cells, on the other hand, are larger with irregular pores that allow the nanoparticles to penetrate the cells. In this manner, the nanoparticles can accumulate in the cancer cells.

Because of this, doctors and scientists and researchers don’t need to worry about developing specific proteins to trick cancer cells into accepting the payload. And they don’t have to worry about these types of treatments cause serious, unintended side effects because the nanoparticles can’t attack the normal cells of the human body.

The other cool thing about nanoparticles is that they self-assemble. You get all of the ingredients together in a tightly controlled environment and they just create themselves. From a manufacturing standpoint, that’s awesome because that means these types of particles are very easy to make. Combining the nanoparticles with chemotherapy drugs (using a mesh-like container inside the nanoparticles) can provide a very targeted delivery mechanism to get the drugs exactly where you want it – and avoid having toxins build up in areas that could cause collateral damage.

Research studies have been done for prostate, breast, and lung cancer tumors – in mice. But scientists are hopeful that these recent experiments will allow them to start clinical trials in humans soon.