# Nanotech 'Trojan Horse' Sneaks Drugs Into Cancer Cells



## Ho Ho Tai (Feb 19, 2010)

Dimensions friends:

I sent this article to many people in my address list, at least half of whom are cancer survivors, or in the process of (hopefully) becoming such. I think it appropriate to share with you too.

Note: some of you with whom I have corresponded off-board, will find this in their in-box also.

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Friends -

Always something new on the cancer front, isn't there? And it's been that way since I could first spell the word. Every new thing shows great promise - in the lab. Everything seems to have found a new weakness in cancer cells to exploit. Everything offers new hope.

You would think that I would be immune to such blandishments by now, but here I go again. After all, if we can put a man on the moon (remember that?) maybe . . .

Nanotech 'Trojan Horse' Sneaks Drugs Into Cancer Cells
Good things come in small packages, as the saying goes, and nowhere is
that more true than in nanotechnology. Research in the field has
recently led to several new strategies for employing nanotechnology in
the fight against cancer, and -- so far, at least -- the results are
promising.
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/69361.html


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## LillyBBBW (Feb 19, 2010)

This is promising news. Thanks for sharing it!


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## Risible (Feb 20, 2010)

I don't know much about nano technology; it's always seems to be more in the realm of futuristic improbability to me (I remember reading a fiction by Michael Crichton about nanotech a few years ago, for example). Maybe now the future is just about here ...

Fascinating article - thanks, Hoho.


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## Ho Ho Tai (Feb 20, 2010)

Risible said:


> I don't know much about nano technology; it's always seems to be more in the realm of futuristic improbability to me (I remember reading a fiction by Michael Crichton about nanotech a few years ago, for example). Maybe now the future is just about here ...
> 
> Fascinating article - thanks, Hoho.



Risible - I never saw the Crichton story, but I do remember clearly (with the aid of google and numerous reruns) a STNG episode entitled "Evolution" Briefly, Wesley's experiment with 'nanites' (nanobots) runs amok, takes over the computer, et c., leading to a lot of mayhem and chaos before wise old heads prevail.

And that was 1989 - 21 years ago!

Frankly, I'm not sure where I stand on the darn things. If I were still in the scientific work force, I might be pushing some nanotech project along as hard as I could. Retired, well . . . I might be with the rag-tag mob from the village, waving torchs and pitchforks and storming the castle - the one with the lightning bolts playing around the tower.


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## Melian (Feb 26, 2010)

siRNAs, miRNAs (micro) and nano delivery vehicles have been in the works for years now. Five or six years ago, if the word "nano" appeared in your grant application, you were almost destined to get funding 

These technologies are promising, indeed, but they suffer from some of the same drawbacks as current treatments: you need to know exactly which molecules to target (cancers have multifactorial etiologies), you must kill ALL cancer cells (or all cancer stem cells, if that theory is correct) within tumor borders that are poorly defined, and the effect must be long-lasting. Another issue with administration of any RNA is the fact that all cells contain copious amounts of RNAses, which degrade RNA, so the nucleic acids are difficult to protect within an organism.

At any rate, the specificity offered by this approach is infinitely better than anything we have used in the past, so hopefully it will be properly developed. I'm extra hopeful, as mi/siRNA and other epigenetic drugs are a central downstream application of my thesis work.


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## Ho Ho Tai (Feb 26, 2010)

Melian said:


> siRNAs, miRNAs (micro) and nano delivery vehicles have been in the works for years now. Five or six years ago, if the word "nano" appeared in your grant application, you were almost destined to get funding
> 
> These technologies are promising, indeed, but they suffer from some of the same drawbacks as current treatments: you need to know exactly which molecules to target (cancers have multifactorial etiologies), you must kill ALL cancer cells (or all cancer stem cells, if that theory is correct) within tumor borders that are poorly defined, and the effect must be long-lasting. Another issue with administration of any RNA is the fact that all cells contain copious amounts of RNAses, which degrade RNA, so the nucleic acids are difficult to protect within an organism.
> 
> At any rate, the specificity offered by this approach is infinitely better than anything we have used in the past, so hopefully it will be properly developed. I'm extra hopeful, as mi/siRNA and other epigenetic drugs are a central downstream application of my thesis work.



Thank you, Mellian. When you are granted your Ph.D. (or maybe sooner!) I hope you will be one of those who take us to the next step.

I know next to nothing about this topic - only what I pick up from SciAm and New Scientist. However, there are many similarities to the problems encountered in my engineering career. I've been retired for some years now, but nearly all of my efforts were in some form of signal processing, signal analysis, target discrimination, or cardiac behavior. Whether in sonar, radar, or cardiac medicine (and even a bit of astronomy, back in grad school), one always had the problem of separating out the pepper from the flyspecks. Signals were always driven in part by 'contaminating' variables, degraded by the media through which they traveled and, of course, always convolved with, and mixed with, noise.

We were always getting asked by the 'brass' why it was so hard just to tell them what they wanted to know (or to hear!) We would quote the bible to them - the part about God, on Judgment Day, moving all the sheep to his right, and the goats to the left.

And not until then can we ever be sure that we haven't overlooked a sheep, or allowed a goat to romp among them.

You're starting down a long, hard, and intensely rewarding career, certainly in terms of personal interest and psychic reward. I hope that it will be rewarding in monetary terms as well.

I've no idea what your religious background may be. I have long declared myself to be a searching agnostic. Every now and then, some writer, lecturer, or personal friend will find a way to push me a few microns closer to belief. The latest writer to do this may be quite well known to you - Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project. He started the project as an atheist, but as he looked deeper and deeper into the human machinery, he found God staring back at him. While I may not be convinced by every statement and deduction he makes, who am I to argue with such an august figure.

He relates his journey in The Language of God. A fascinating 'read' regardless of your beliefs or technical background (by 'your', I refer to all readers of this post.) I looked on-line for reviews of this book. It is almost impossible to find a neutral, unbiased review. I will not elaborate, except to say that it is a good example of how people (or peoples) rise up in righteous wrath when the little pink toes of their beliefs get stepped on, and the more fragile the support for their beliefs, the more righteousness. 

Sort of explains the whole Middle East thing, huh?


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## Melian (Feb 27, 2010)

Ho Ho Tai said:


> You're starting down a long, hard, and intensely rewarding career, certainly in terms of personal interest and psychic reward. I hope that it will be rewarding in monetary terms as well.
> 
> I've no idea what your religious background may be. I have long declared myself to be a searching agnostic. Every now and then, some writer, lecturer, or personal friend will find a way to push me a few microns closer to belief. The latest writer to do this may be quite well known to you - Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project. He started the project as an atheist, but as he looked deeper and deeper into the human machinery, he found God staring back at him. While I may not be convinced by every statement and deduction he makes, who am I to argue with such an august figure.
> 
> ...



Hm...I don't think my career will ever "pay off," salary-wise, but it doesn't really matter, as I try to live as a minimalist. 

Like Collins, I entered science as an atheist, however, I find that research has only strengthened those beliefs. Here's the reasoning: yes, molecular systems are intensely complex, to the point where one could say that they had to be "designed that way." In contrast, one could look at the organization and note that things have evolved in a series of lock-and-key scenarios - for example, one allosteric pocket of a protein has a particular amino acid arrangement, suited for only one substrate to bind, optimized over thousands of years to serve one purpose. Repeat until basic organisms are formed. It is pure kinetics and conservation of energy.

The idea of energetically favourable molecular interactions is exemplified by a recent finding (and this actually blew my mind):

George Church, a Harvard geneticist, disassembled _E.coli _ribosomes into component parts, and when they were placed in a test tube together, they spontaneously reassembled into fully functional ribosomes, which are the proteins that assemble other proteins from amino acids. They likely do this because it is the lowest energy state for this combination of molecules, thus, it is favoured over other possibilities. And it's not just one or two parts - it's ridiculously complex! Here is a recipe:







Anyway, I can definitely see both reasonings on this topic, and it really just comes down to that belief factor. If I find some free time (valuable commodity, these days), I will check out that book and review it for you :happy:


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