Tuesday, 14th November 2006 (4482 views)

Gold nanoparticles may help to kill cancer cells, according to new research by Russian scientists.

A team from the Russian Academy of Sciences, lead by Nikolai Khlebtsov, believe that cancer cells could be "cooked to death" through the use of gold nanoparticles. Further details of the study are published in the latest issue of Nanotechnology journal and it is thought that the nanoparticles may be capable of converting light into heat.

The work involves a theoretical approach that could eventually lead to the creation of light-absorbing single nanoparticles and chains of gold nanoparticles.

Researchers concluded that using gold nanoshells with silica cores of 50 to 100 nanometres in diameter and gold shells of three to eight nanometres in thickness could prove to more efficient in capturing light than single round gold nanoparticles and could be one of way of improving cancer treatment and survival rates worldwide.

In addition, the development of gold nanorods that are between 15 and 20 nanometres across and 50 to 70 nanometres in length could be used within photo thermal therapies.

 

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