/sci/ - Science & Math

There is the problem of poor water solubility common to many promising and currently available anticancer drugs, Nanotechnology has been successfully utilised to create a new drug delivery system and thereby increase their effectiveness. By also harnessing the EPR effect, this can allow us to achieve much greater accumulation of the pharmaceutical in tumors.

come on /sci/borgs, have I not got any supporters?

>>3793756
Am I gonna have to nerve-staple some bitches? >:(

Things you might want to elaborate on (depending on who you're writing this for):

- Specificity of the delivery system and how it's accomplished (how does it enter the cells? Via a receptor? What's special about that receptor?)
- Interaction of the nanotech delivery system with the drug itself and the patient's physiology (What changes might you have to make for the wide range of anti-cancer drugs? What else might the nano particles interact with or how will they be removed out of the body - in particular, look at the kidney and the effect on the glomerulus)

Is this related to microwaving gold plated cancer? I had half a mind to get cancer just to undergo the procedure.

>>3793906
Holy fuck, imagine trying to explain that to a patient as a doctor.

"Okay, we're going to bombard you with microwaves"
"YOU MEAN YOU'RE GOING TO COOK ME?!"
"..."

>>3793922
"But first we will cover every cancer cell with gold."
"Will my insurance cover it?"
"Yes, I believe it will."
"FUCK YEAH! SIGN ME UP!"

>>3793906
Kinda, this is about circumventing the barriers that cancer puts up to get the "stuff" in be it good 'ol chemo-agents or fancy gold nano-bombs.

>>3793891
Yep, gonna have plenty of room for that. 5k word minimum. Already got some sources about how genetic factors play a huge role in the resistances of cancers.

>>3793906
Kinda, this is about circumventing the barriers that cancer puts up to get the "stuff" in be it good 'ol chemo-agents or fancy gold nano-bombs.

>>3793891
Yep, gonna have plenty of room for that. 5k word minimum. Already got some sources about how genetic factors play a huge role in the resistances of cancers.

>>3793938
Crazy nanomedicine-general now?

>>3793956
That's actually all I got. :\

http://www.demonoid.me/files/details/2082726/1082334/

Under NanoMedicine and NanoBiology, check "Nanotechnology for Cancer Therapy"

>>3793720
if that is ur first sentence, u need to define EPR.

>>3793982
Well colleague, stay a while and listen!

A major current issue with cancer treatment is patient relapse and metastasis of malignant cells after the standard cancer treatments of surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is one of the most effective method of treating metastasised cancers. With that said, some cancers can exhibit strong resistance to the chemotherapy agents through various means, making them ineffective. In addition to this, conventional chemotherapy is non-specific and will cause systemic toxic damage to the patient's body. If tumour cells could be specifically targeted, this would no longer be an issue. This would greatly increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy as stronger formulations would be possible for use.(Liang et al. 2010)

>>3794035
That's from a dot point on my "scratch pad". The last i just posted is my first paragraph.

>>3794020
Holy shit. MAH NIGGA.

>>3794064
Pretty baller collection. Most of it is over my head because I'm still fucking around in pre-calculus. :<

>>3794020

>Only one of Robert Freitas' books

>>3794122
Find something and get reading. Even if you don't get it 100% right now, you'll be setting up a framework of understanding for later that can be improved upon.

>>3794020
Hah, this had 2 seeds when I started, now it has 12. /sci/borgs attack!

One of the areas that nanotechnology can offer good improvements in is the area of imaging, detection and diagnostics. Nano-engineered particles can provide multiple imaging possibilities that are targeted towards several cancer markers. An example of this is the Simultaneously Multiple Aptemers and RGD Targeting (SMART) probe. This nano-conjugate led to much better results than conventional imaging methods.(Ko et al. 2011)

>>3794305
Want to know something funny? I've always wanted to be a scientist, but what really got me interested in nanotechnology was Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising and Deus Ex. Now there was two fucking good games. Anyone else have a similar thing?

Of course, one of the more direct ways that benefit can be gained is with the circumvention of drug barriers in cancers. A major cause of mortality is the the later reappearance of a cancer that was thought to have been treated effectively, but has returned with greater resistance to treatment via acquired resistance.(Liang et al. 2010)

For drug delivery aspects, you are spot on saying that the hydrophoic drugs act poorly in the (hydrophilic) human internal system. A number of delivery aspects can be used to counteract this:
1) nanodiamonds (very new an up-coming) - http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/03/nanodiamonds-could-be-a-cancer-p.html
2) graphene sheets finctionalized with drugs like DOX etc. Graphene sheets are colloidally staable in hydrophillic solutions which makes them good candidates as well.
3) nanotubes. They have been known to be functionalized with follic acid (and derivatives). This gets certain cancer cells to injest them, then they can be irradiated with IR and they heat up, killing the cancer cells.
4) Self-assembling polymers. Polymers which can form vesicles (arguably the best way) that have ligands that can be bound to streptavidin that can be bound to other hydrophobic components.
5) Some people even use DNA functionalized with a metallic species (experimental work, sorry I forgot the name of the paper) that bind to acetylated (active and non-super coiled DNA) expressing oncogenes (cancer genes), which facilitates the binding of the metal species to the DNA inactivating it.

I hope that helps.

>>3794528
Thanks colleague, Always good to have a list of topics. Hadn't heard of 1 and 2.

A question on structure my colleagues! Should I sort the topics by function or by type? Eg, should I list them as just dendrimer, CNT's, etc or should it be "bypassing barreier X", "utiliziaing the EPR effect" etc.

i think going by nanomaterial type would be best.

Tumour resistance mechanisms have many origins, these resistances can be intrinsic or acquired. Most often, the resistance is intrinsic at the beginning, but after treatment, acquired resistance can develop from cells that were not killed by the treatment. Intrinsic resistance is when the tumour cells are capable of avoiding or repairing the damage caused by the cytotoxic effects of the chemotherapy. The mechanisms for these resistances can operate along several lines, including decreased drug activation, permeability barriers or enhanced repair against damage. In highly resistant tumour cell lines, multiple changes are usually observed, so it is an accepted hypothesis that resistance to chemotherapeutic agents will have multiple factors behind it.(Gottesman 2002)

>>3793662

>http://www.pnas.org/content/106/12/4822.full

I would consider this nanotech to a degree. They engineered stem cells to express a tumor suppressor and implanted them into the brain to target one of the most malignant forms of cancer.

Maybe consider adding a biodelivery system section to your report?

I'd agree on separating by delivery system.

>>3795104
Thank you added to the potential list. Current planned structure is:

Intro
Background
<list of various stuff>
Summary

500/5000 words done :( Looks like i'm not going to be able to take any time off at all this weekend.

So what's everyone's choice music for report writing? I like ambient stuff like "digital serenity", "Sleep Research Facility - 79º S 83º W" (and the rest of that album) and "Dave Wallace - State Of Mind". helps block out the background noise and makes me keep my thoughts to the project.

>>3793720
haha i was about to jump on this as a troll because i thought it was a reference to the paradox.

>>3795152
"the paradox"?

>>3795158
epr paradox in physics is a thought experiment about how you can have two particles entangled, split them up, and when you measure one it collapses the wave function of the other via "action at a distance" or non-locality or something

not exactly related

>>3795161
Ah right, damn quantum physics. I really should brush up on it considering that i'm going into nanotech and understanding shit like band-gaps and the like are kinda important.

>>3795141

I agree on the ambient music.

"Music for Airports" and "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks" by Brian Eno are my favorite albums.

I also have a love for theme park soundtracks as they're tailor-made to blend into the background and affect your mood.

If it's mindless work though, any old music will do.

>>3795161
Oh hey, look who just showed up! the EPR effect!

With that said, there are several properties of cancers that nanotechnology can exploit for great benefit. For example, the leaky blood vessels and poor lymphatic drainage of solid tumours promotes the acceptance and retention of macromolecules and nanoscale particles. This is referred to as the Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR) effect. There are also tell-tale markers that are strongly expressed in some cancers such as folic acid binding proteins on the surface of the cells. With the correct targeting methods, this can be exploited to immensely reduce systemic damage from chemotherapeutic agents.(Liang et al. 2010)

>>3795166
I'll have to look these up.

Also, I forgot goddamn SMAC(:X) as an influential game. I dunno what I've been told (but deidre's got a network node!).

zakharov you ever do anything with magnetic hyperthalmia / ferrofluids? it seems like a pretty useful general treatment - inject ferrofluid (i believe it's very if not completely biocompatible) into tumors, apply RF magnetic field, localized heating causes cell death and increase efficiency of systemic treatments such as chemo

>>3795210
Yep, totally heard of it but unfortunately it's outside of the bounds of my topic.

"Multifunctional nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery by overcoming the barriers of drug resistance in various cancers."

So it's about HOW the stuff is getting into the cancer, not what it does inside. Mind you I should probably look into it to see if it can still do it's thing from outside the cell because that'd be a pretty good way to get past all this shit. Blast it from outside :v

Ugh, my working efficiency for this is terrible. I estimate that I've only spent about 50% of my "allotted" time on this actually working on it. The rest of the time I'm fucking about on other stuff. Is ritalin/modafinil as good as they say?

modafinil is ok, it keeps you awake

nothing touches dextroamphetmaines / adderall, although ritalin can come close. it's not as fun which is why internet druggies dont prioritize getting it.

the problem is doctors wont give you a script if you're smart.

>>3795469
Well I'm in Australia so i'd imagine getting my hands on it is much harder than say, the USA.

The non-specific nature of many current anti-cancer agents severely limits their maximum effectiveness as if the dosage is too high, systemic toxic effects outweigh the beneficial anti-cancer effect. To reach pharmacologically active concentrations of the agent at the penalty of contaminating much of the body. Nanotechnology offers multiple ways of solving this issue by increasing the accumulation of an agent when administered systemically.

A well known feature of many cancers is over expression of folic acid receptor proteins on cell surfaces due to epigenetic changes. This can be exploited by the conjugation of folate to the nanoparticle, greatly increasing it's affinity for tumour cells. In addition to this, the folate-treated nanoparticles showed a tenfold increased affinity for the binding protein than free folate. This increase in apparent affinity was attributed to the particles featured a multivalent form of the folic acid ligand and thus displayed a stronger interaction with the receptor. This factor in combination with the over expression of the binding protein will promote endocytosis of the treated nanoparticle. It was also shown that no uptake occurred with cancers that did not over express the receptor. This behaviour could be used in a nano-conjugate that also has a chemotherapy agent added to it. (Stella et al. 2000)

Goddamn, only 880 words so far :( This is definitely the slow grinding part of this:

"There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn, nonetheless, for the latter."