In the last two weeks, NanOlogy has launched trials evaluating its cancer-fighting paclitaxel nanoparticle suspension in patients with prostate cancer and in patients with ovarian cancer. The Texas-based company’s nanoparticle tech is based on a production process that cuts the size of chemotherapy crystals by up to 400 times, creating stable nanoparticles with increased surface […]
Nanoparticles
Alzeca Biosciences raises $11m for Alzheimer’s diagnostic imaging agent
Alzeca Biosciences said today that it raised $11 million in a Series A round to fund the development of its MRI imaging agent designed for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. The company touts its ADx nanoparticle as the first MRI contrast agent to target amyloid – a brain protein linked […]
Study: Drug-delivery micromotors treat bacterial infection in stomach
Researchers at the University of California San Deigo have successfully used tiny micromotors loaded with antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection in the stomachs of mice, according to a study published today in Nature Communications. The tiny drug-delivery vehicles are powered by gastric acid, pushing them through the stomach and releasing cargo in a specific region, […]
Novel nanotech enables earlier diagnosis, treatment of Zika virus
Researchers from Washington University have developed a novel diagnostic test that uses nanotech to rapidly detect the presence of Zika virus in blood samples. The team’s system, which was described in the journal Advanced Biosystems, could enable earlier diagnosis and treatment for people infected with Zika virus compared to traditional diagnostic methods. Often people infected with […]
Study: Injectable antiretroviral therapy proves as effective as oral treatment
Injectable antiretroviral therapy may be as effective as standard oral treatment in patients with HIV, according to the results of a Phase II clinical trial. The 286-patient study, published in The Lancet, compared a nanoparticle therapy that was injected intramuscularly every four or eight weeks with standard maintenance therapy. “This is the first time that all-injectable […]
Study: Protein ferries molecule to tumors, triggering self-destruction
Ribonucleic acids, which can alter the behavior of cancerous cells, can be effectively ferried to tumors using a human protein called albumin, according to research conducted by a team of engineers at Vanderbilt University. The team’s work could help boost treatment for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, the researchers reported in the journal Proceedings of the […]
MIT researchers fight drug-resistant bacteria with nanoparticles
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are using nanoparticles to tackle drug-resistant bacteria, according to a study published in Advanced Materials. Gram-negative bacteria are particularly difficult to treat, since they are protected by two cell membranes. But the team of Cambridge-based researchers reported that antimicrobial peptides inside of a silicon nanoparticle effectively reduced the number […]
Study: Nanomedicine shuts down cells that drive cancer growth in glioblastoma
Researchers from Northwestern Medicine have developed lipid polymer-based nanoparticles that target key cancer drivers, called brain tumor initiating cells, in a mouse model of glioblastoma brain tumors. “BTICs are malignant brain tumor populations that underlie the therapy resistance, recurrence and unstoppable invasion commonly encountered by glioblastoma patients after the standard treatment regimen of surgical resection, […]
Plant-virus nanoparticles combined with chemo delays tumor progression
Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine and RWTH Aachen University have demonstrated that injecting nanoscale potato-virus particles and doxorubicin into melanoma tumors slows tumor progression in mice. The team’s work was published in Nano Letters. Although simultaneous injection of the virus particles and a chemo drug prompted a […]
Nanobiotix seeks to boost cancer care with nanoparticle-radiotherapy combo
Increasingly, pharma and biotech companies are looking towards personalized medicine to guide their portfolios, developing therapies designed to address the needs of individual patient populations. Nanobiotix (EMA:NANO) has chosen to look in the other direction, according to co-founder & CEO Laurent Levy. “What we have done in our company is trying to go for the opposite: […]