New Diagnostic and Treatment Tool for Ovarian Cancer via Nanotechnology

While nanotechnology is revolutionizing the world, its biggest impact in the future would be in the healthcare industry.

In a collaboration of Rush University Medical Center with Argonne National Laboratory and the Illinois Institute of Technology, nanotechnology is being utilized in searching for new ways to diagnose and treat ovarian cancer.

“While the mortality rates of many cancers have decreased significantly in recent decades, the rate for ovarian cancer had not changed much in the last 50 years, primarily due to delays in diagnosis,” said Dr. Jacob Rotmensch, section director of gynecologic oncology at Rush.

“By exploiting the unique properties of nanotechnology, we hope to detect ovarian cancer earlier using highly sensitive imaging tools and develop drug carriers that can deliver therapeutic agents inside tumor cells.”

Because diagnosis of early stage cancer requires the detection and characterization of very small quantities of biomarker, the nanotech based approach is what is necessary as nanoscale devices (measuring one billionth of a meter or 1/80,000 the width of a human hair) can perform tasks inside the body that would otherwise not be possible, such as entering most cells and moving through the walls of blood vessels.

And so such nanoscale devices can readily interact with individual molecules on both the cell surface and within the cell, in such ways that do not alter the behavior of those molecules.

Nanotechnology is being used in search of a screening test that would not require removal of the ovary for biopsy and viral particles as templates to fabricate uniform, nanometer imaging probes and drug carriers.

The above nanotechnology research projects are collaboration among Rush University Medical Center, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Illinois Institute of Technology under the directorships of Dr. Jacob Rotmensch and Dr. Liaohai Chen.

This collaboration promotes the education, dialogue, and interaction of physicians and biologists with chemists, physicists and engineers to foster the research of applying nanotechnology to gyn-oncology and regenerative medicine.

The research goal includes development of a novel medical imaging and a drug delivery vehicle that will drive state-of-the-art screening, treatment and prevention of women’s disease to a new level.

Read more details at Rush University Medical Center.