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Just read this month's Pop Sci, and the article on using gold nanospheres in cancer detection and treatment was pretty encouraging. Obviously, there are many steps between an encouraging new idea and a working treatment, but Halas and West have a three million dollar grant and are ready to go to human test subjects within the next year.
The idea depends on a ball of layered gold 100 nm wide. These nanoshells must attach themselves to cancer cells by antibodies with which their surface is coated. Now, my knowledge of cancer research is woefully thin but, I was not aware that we had antibodies capable of identifying a cancer cell! Can somebody give me more information on these?
At any rate, the new technique could detect cancer "possibly six or seven years before other technologies do," according to the manager who gave these researchers the grant. For tumors caught that early, it is believed that treatment could take place in that same office visit.
EDITED Sep 20 for typo
The idea depends on a ball of layered gold 100 nm wide. These nanoshells must attach themselves to cancer cells by antibodies with which their surface is coated. Now, my knowledge of cancer research is woefully thin but, I was not aware that we had antibodies capable of identifying a cancer cell! Can somebody give me more information on these?
At any rate, the new technique could detect cancer "possibly six or seven years before other technologies do," according to the manager who gave these researchers the grant. For tumors caught that early, it is believed that treatment could take place in that same office visit.
EDITED Sep 20 for typo
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