Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine are focusing on a technology that could deliver cancer treatments directly to tiny cells without affecting other cells. Currently, chemotherapy is a broad treatment that affects both benign and malignant cells.
Current cancer fighting drugs are limited by the inability of the medicine to get efficiently into the cancer cells, without affecting other normal growing cells," lead researcher Mark Kester said in a statement. Kester, director of Penn State Center for NanoMedicine and Materials, has developed a Nanojacket technology that targets a gene mutation in women with advanced cases of breast cancer.
Not only does the new technology target a smaller area, it can be adjusted to fit patients specific gene mutations. One aspect of personalized medicine is identifying genetic mutations in individual cancer patients, as opposed to a one size fits all approach, Kester said. Nanotechnology enables the therapeutic targeting of these mutations.
Kester and his co-investigator, James Adair of Penn States Department of Material Sciences and Engineering, has received a $1 million grant that will be used to conduct trials preparatory to seeking approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Kester and Adair are co-founders and chief medical officer and chief scientific officer, respectively, of Keystone Nano.
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Nanotechnology and Breast Cancer