(This story originally appeared in on May 15, 2016)

Develop microscopic vehicles that can carry anti-cancer drug molecules to affected cells

Indian scientists are closing in on a breakthrough in cancer treatment that will see a variety of cancers being cured using just a series of injections without side-effects on the body, that is characteristic of chemotherapy. The new technology has the potential to completely bypass chemotherapy.A team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru are on the verge of developing just such a non-invasive technique to deal with cancers.A team of scientists from the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) of IISc have just achieved sending microscopic nano-voyagers, each measuring five nanometres in length (one nanometre is one-billionth of a metre), directly into pre-identified cells. These nano-voyagers are planned to be vehicles carrying anti-cancer drug molecules into the cells to destroy them, in the bargain restricting and eliminating the cancer.Sources in CeNSE informed Bangalore Mirror that the team is now collaborating with cancer specialists in Bengaluru-based Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology (KMIO) and a group of radiation experts to perfect the technique and finding out precisely what kinds of drug molecules can be used to kill cancer cells.The CeNSE experiment is primarily being conducted to target cervical and lung cancer cells on body parts taken from mice. But the scientists are yet to conduct such an experiment on live mice. Only when these experiments are successfully conducted on live mice would trials be taken up on humans."We were able to send in the nano-voyagers into the exact cells that we were targeting," said Prof Ambarish Ghosh, assistant professor, CeNSE, who is leading the team. "These nano-voyagers were able to accurately map the cells they entered, which is a big thing for us."He explained that this exercise implied that the nano-voyagers had the potential to carry anti-cancer drug molecules right inside the cancerous cells and destroy them.The nano-voyagers, after being injected, are manoeuvred using an external magnetic field to ensure they reach the precise destination cells.The nano-voyager is made of silicon-dioxide, also known as silica, a chemical compound that is an oxide of silicon."We first experimented in water and it had gone well. But when we did it in blood (in lab conditions), we realised that the irons in the blood corroded the nano-voyagers. So that was a major issue," he said. But a chance meeting with Prof Srinivasrao Shivshankar of IISc's Materials Research Centre came as a blessing. The MRC researchers had developed zinc ferrites - a very thin film of material that fights corrosion - which was found to be biocompatible, and the silica nano-voyager were coated with that to avoid corrosion.The CeNSE teams experiment were initially researching how these nano-voyagers with drug molecules could be sent into the human brain through the bloodstream to treat brain degenerative diseases like Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's Disease.But Ghosh explained that cancer cells being softer tissues provided easier access to the nano-voyagers into targeted cells.The technology will be extended to treat other types of cancers after it is proven successful in human trial to treat cervical and lung cancers.