New nanoparticles could improve cancer treatment
In recent years, studies have shown that for many types of cancer, combination drug therapy is more effective than single drugs. However, it is usually difficult to get the right amount of each drug to the tumor. Now researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a nanoparticle that can deliver precise doses of two or more drugs to prostate cancer cells.In a study appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers tailored their particles to deliver cisplatin and docetaxel, two drugs commonly used to treat many different types of cancer. Such particles could improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy while minimizing the side effects normally seen with these drugs, according to the researchers. They could also be adapted to target cancers other than prostate cancer, or even to deliver drugs for other diseases that require combination therapy.To build their nanoparticles, the...