Nanotechnology Can Suppress Ovarian Cancer

Photo credit: MIT, Donna Coveney

By Ed Martinez

August 1, 2009

Scientists and researchers have been working in nanotechnology for many years now. Nanotechnology can be best described as the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. In nanotechnology, a nanoparticle is defined as a tiny object that behaves as a whole unit in terms of its transport and properties. Because of these characteristics, many gene therapy researchers are developing nanoparticles as an alternative to viruses—which have more of a risk factor.

In a recent study performed at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, researchers used nanoparticles to suppress ovarian tumor growth in mice.

They engineered these nanoparticles from polymers known as poly(beta-amino esters). When mixed together, these polymers spontaneously assembled with DNA to form nanoparticles. When the polymer-DNA nanoparticles were injected into the targeted tissue, they delivered a gene that produces the diptheria toxin, thus killing the cancerous cells by disabling their manufacture of proteins.

“Human clinical trials could start, after some additional preclinical studies, in about a year or two,” said Daniel Anderson, a research associate at MIT. Anderson believes that this new therapy could be more effective than the traditional methods for fighting ovarian cancer, which typically include surgical procedures and chemotherapy treatments.

The findings are encouraging and could pave the way for a new treatment of ovarian cancer, which causes more than 15,000 deaths each year in the United States.