Cancerous stem cells may cause the formation tumors and are particularly difficult to prevent and/or reverse. They resist chemotherapy, allowing a cancerous condition to return.
Scientists are now saying it may be possible to transform these cancerous stem cells by attaching a chemo drug to colloidal diamonds.
They have tested this idea using the commonly used chemo drug Epirubicin, which they attached to colloidal diamonds, carbon structures with a diameter of about five nanometers, to develop a nano-diamond-Epirubicin drug delivery complex (EPND).
The study was published in ACS Nano and led by Edward Chow, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore.
Compared to other approaches, delivery of existing chemotherapy drugs with nanomaterials provide a broader range of protection in a package that is both safer and more effective.
The findings show that delivery of Epirubicin by nano colloidal diamonds resulted in a normally lethal dosage of Epirubicin becoming a safe and effective dosage without negative side-effects.
As such, delivery of chemotherapy drugs by nano colloidal diamond not only enables enhanced transformation and elimination of chemo-resistant cancerous stem cells, but may be a useful alternative for patients who cannot tolerate the toxic side-effects of standard chemotherapy drugs.
Researchers say this approach is not limited to liver cancer and could potentially treat other cancers driven by resistant cancerous stem cells.
This is why I created the first nano-colliodal diamond supplement in the World to support a natural approach to the prevention and treatment of cancer.
Source: National University of Singapore
Abstract
Chemo-resistance is a primary cause of treatment failure in cancer and a common property of tumor-initiating cancer stem cells. Overcoming mechanisms of chemo-resistance, particularly in cancer stem cells, can markedly enhance cancer therapy and prevent recurrence and metastasis. This study demonstrates that the delivery of Epirubicin by nanodiamonds is a highly effective nanomedicine-based approach to overcoming chemo-resistance in hepatic cancer stem cells. The potent physical adsorption of Epirubicin to nanodiamonds creates a rapidly synthesized and stable nanodiamond–drug complex that promotes endocytic uptake and enhanced tumor cell retention. These attributes mediate the effective killing of both cancer stem cells and noncancerous stem cells in vitro and in vivo.
Enhanced treatment of both tumor cell populations results in an improved impairment of secondary tumor formation in vivocompared with treatment by unmodified chemotherapeutics. On the basis of these results, colloidal diamond-mediated drug delivery may serve as a powerful method for overcoming chemo-resistance in cancer stem cells and markedly improving overall treatment against hepatic/liver cancers.
pHorever Young Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.