JRC scientists, in close collaboration with several European research organisations, have developed highly specific gold nanoparticles targeting malignant blood cancer cells. Such targeted nanocarriers enable the delivery of otherwise toxic drugs into the leukaemia cells and they can also serve a better diagnosis and treatment of leukemia.
Highly specific targeting of human malignant blood cells with the purpose of detection and delivering cytotoxic drugs into them is a very promising but not well developed strategy of leukemia treatment.
JRC scientists have assisted an international team from Germany, Switzerland and the UK, to develop a platform (based on 5 nm gold nanoparticles) to target cancer cells expressing the immune receptor Tim-3 using single chain antibodies.
This technology might be also considered for highly specific capturing of target cells that carry a surface-based protein biomarker of interest, potentially leading to more precise diagnosis of this type of cancer.
The JRC's contribution to the study consisted of the synthesis of the gold nanoparticles and the characterisation of the nanoconjugates by electron microscopy and circular dichroism.
Read more in: I. Yasinska, Inna M., et al. Highly specific targeting of human acute myeloid leukaemia cells using pharmacologically active nanoconjugates, Nanoscale 10 (2018) 5827-5833; doi: 10.1039/C7NR09436A
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- Publication date
- 31 July 2018