Researchers at the Harvard Wyss Institute have developed a nanoparticle aggregate system that releases a drug when it is dispersed using ultrasound. This means that it can be used to deliver toxic chemotherapy drugs directly to a tumor while reducing side-effects in healthy tissues. Normally, many tumors are treated using chemotherapy drugs that travel throughout […]
Tag: Oncology
Groups of Nanoparticles Powered by a Magnet Team Up to Kill Cancer Cells
Number of ways have been developed that allow nanoparticles to kill cancer cells. Some of these include delivering chemo agents, converting electromagnetic energy beamed into heat, and manipulating with the signaling processes of tumor cells. An international team of researchers is now reporting in journal Theranostics a way of bunching iron oxide particles doped with zinc […]
Nanoparticles Feature Two Mechanisms to Boost Effectiveness of Immunotherapy to Fight Cancer
Immunotherapy techniques for fighting cancer generally fall into two categories: preventing tumor cells from evading the immune system’s T cells and summoning T cells to attack the tumors. Now scientists at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed nanoparticles that perform both tasks at the same time, significantly improving the effectiveness of immunotherapy in a […]
Using Watson to Diagnose Skin Cancer: Interview with IBM Computer Vision Scientist, Noel Codella
With an approximate 100,000 people in the US diagnosed with melanoma each year and a total of 5 million diagnosed with a variety of other skin cancers, a lot of research has gone into improving current methods of early detection and speeding up diagnoses. Unfortunately, in addition to a highly-trained pair of eyes and significant […]
Microchip for Sorting and Identifying Large Numbers of Circulating Tumor Chips
Detection and classification of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) may soon become a common method for screening for multiple types of cancer. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) is popular one technique for spotting CTCs, but it’s limited because the number of available dye colors is small and because for CTCs of certain cancers there aren’t any markers at all. […]
Videssa Breast Blood Diagnostic Test for Breast Cancer
Provista Diagnostics, a company based in New York City, has developed the Videssa Breast blood-based proteomic test to detect breast cancer. At present, after an abnormal mammogram doctors are faced with a difficult decision: whether to carry out an invasive biopsy or not. “When a mammogram yields an abnormal result, the challenge for every clinician is […]
Chemical Engineers Help Nanoparticles Better Target Brain Tumors
Getting drugs into the brain by cloaking them within nanoparticles that can sneak through the blood-brain barrier has been the focus of a lot of nanotechnology research over the past few years. There’s quite a bit of progress toward that goal, including some notable successes. Because of this progress, scientists are coming to the realization […]
Interview with Harshal Shah, Head of Oncology Drug Delivery at Cambridge Consultants
Thanks to the ongoing advancements in standards of care and gradual improvements in more targeted therapeutics, some argue that cancer is slowly turning into a chronic disease, and with it bringing about a host of new challenges for oncology care. These challenges are also opening up a variety of new opportunities for technical innovations that […]
Breast Cancer Detection Using Ultrasound: Interview with Dr. Georgia Giakoumis Spear, NorthShore University Health System
Detecting breast cancer is of vital importance in terms of treating it early and effectively. Mammography is the gold standard in routinely screening women for breast cancer. However, in a subset of women with dense breast tissue, mammography doesn’t work as well as one would hope. In fact, it can miss up to a third […]
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Robots Powered by Clinical MRI Machine to Work Inside Body
At the University of Houston researchers are working to develop diagnostic and therapeutic devices that can be steered and powered using the magnetic field of an MRI scanner. So far the researchers have been able to get blocks about two centimeters on a side to move in predetermined ways inside a specially-built box. They hope […]
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New Chemo Drug Eluting Beads for Liver Tumors Cleared in Europe
BTG, a company based in London, UK, won European CE Mark clearance for its DC Bead LUMI radiopaque drug-eluting bead. This is the first such device available in Europe. The beads can be loaded with either doxorubicin or irinotecan, commonly used chemo agents, and injected into tumors within the liver. Their radiopaque quality, thanks to a compound […]
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New Technique Spots Pheomelanin in Pale Patients at Risk of Dangerous Melanoma
People with light colored skin, and particularly orange tinted redheads, have high levels of pheomelanin, a type of melanin, in their skin. It is correlated with amelanotic melanoma, a nasty skin cancer that’s difficult not only to treat, but to detect in the first place. This is because pheomelanin within amelanotic melanomas blends in with healthy skin, […]
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Lasers Measure Cells’ Stiffness to Identify Neoplastic Ones
Unusual softness or stiffness is often an indicator of the presence of cancer in what otherwise may look like healthy tissue. There are already devices on the market that feel how elastic a given tissue is, but they come in contact and sample a very large number of cells at once. Researchers at Duke University have […]
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Vortex Unveils VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System for Easy Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells
Vortex Biosciences of Menlo Park, California just launched its VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System, a device that automates the extraction of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from whole blood. The filter-free technology is based on microfluidic chips with a series of connected boxes linked by narrow channels. As blood is carefully pushed through the system, liquid vortexes […]
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New Technique for Cheaper, More Efficient Single Cell Sequencing
Single-cell sequencing has shown a lot of promise in identifying genetic differences between cells in a given tissue sample. It is particularly useful for understanding heterogeneity and evolution in resected tumors, and is increasingly used for improving precision medicine approaches. Unfortunately, conventional methods are cost-prohibitive, thus they restrict the cell numbers that can be assessed […]
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Individual Control of Magnetic Micromachines Within The Body
Magnetic micromachines can be delivered into the body and then controlled externally using a magnetic field. Such micromachines could be used to deliver a therapeutic agent to a specific location in a minimally invasive manner or control adaptive implants. However, in many cases multiple micromachines may be required. For example, a ‘swarm’ of micromachines could […]
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DNA Computer Can Sense Multiple Antibody Inputs, With Potential for Smart Drug Delivery
Researchers at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands have developed a DNA computer that can respond to the presence of specific antibodies and make calculations, with the potential for intelligent drug delivery in the future. DNA computing involves using DNA molecules and other molecular biological components as molecular circuitry, instead of traditional silicon-based circuitry […]
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QuiO and MedCrypt Partner to Add Data Security Sophistication to Smartinjector Devices
QuiO’s Smartinjector platform, as covered previously on Medgadget, is poised to become the first set of cloud-connected injectable therapy delivery devices available for in-home use. Following their recognition at January’s Accenture Startup Health Festival as the winner of the HealthTech Innovation Challenge, the QuiO team has seen a stark increase in demand for their devices. Now […]
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Magnet-Powered Implant Releases Drugs in Controlled Fashion
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have developed an implantable device designed to release a drug when triggered by an external magnet. The amount of the drug that’s the implant ejects into the body can be controlled by using different strength magnets. Such technology may be of particular use in treating localized conditions to […]
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PerkinElmer’s New Vectra Polaris Automated Quantitative Pathology System for Studying Cancer Immunotherapies
PerkinElmer is releasing a new automated quantitative pathology system, the Vectra Polaris. It was developed to help study how cancer immunotherapies are affecting their targets and nearby tissues. The machine is able to detect multiple immunohistochemical stains simultaneously thanks to multispectral imaging using seven colors, allowing for more complicated studies that identify interesting correlations. The slides […]
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