Swedish scientists have discovered how nanorobots can be used to target and destroy cancer cells.
These tiny robots made of amino acids can be injected into the body. They can activate ‘death receptors’ in cells, helping to shrink tumors. All cells have death receptors, so the main hurdle has been to find a way for the robots to identify harmful cancer cells, not healthy cells and attack cancerous cells.
The team of scientists, based at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, has been working on finding this ‘kill switch’ for years, ever since they first discovered how to make tiny robots made from amino acids.
How do robots identify cancer cells?
“This hexagonal nanopattern of peptides becomes a lethal weapon,” explains Professor Bjørn Högberg, who led the study. Metro”If you use it as a medicine, it will start killing cells in the body indiscriminately, which would not be good. To deal with this problem, we have hidden the weapon inside a nanostructure made of DNA.”
The creation of this nanoscale DNA structure is known as DNA origami. By combining DNA and peptides, the team created robots that target only cancerous cells. pH (or hydrogen potential) measures how acidic or alkaline any substance is. For most of the human body, the pH level is about 7.4, or neutral, but areas around tumors are typically slightly acidic.
By measuring pH, the robots can identify which areas are cancerous. They remain inactive in areas with a pH of 7.4 but start removing cells at pH 6.5.
“We have managed to hide the weapon in such a way that it is only visible inside and in the environment surrounding solid tumors,” said Professor Högberg. “This means that we have created a type of nanorobot that can specifically target cancer cells and kill them.”
Initial testing has been done on mice, with the robots helping to reduce breast cancer tumours by up to 70%.
“We now need to test whether it works in more advanced cancer models that more closely resemble real human disease,” said Yang Wang, first author of the study. “We also need to find out what side effects this method has before testing it on humans.”
In the future, the team hopes that nanorobots will be able to target specific types of cancer. Cancer research has also recently benefited from technological advances in AI, Reducing treatment time And Speeding up diagnosis,
Featured Image: Ideogram
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