Download NanoBots to Fight Cancer

Nanobots to Fight Cancer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. National Cancer Institute announced a new five-year plan
on Monday to develop the use of tiny tools to fight cancer, saying nanotechnology just might
provide the edge needed to defeat the disease.
Nanotechnology -- the design and use of devices the size of molecules -- offers new ways to
detect, diagnose and to treat cancer at its earliest stages and with minimal side effects, experts
told reporters.
"If we can do that then we can eliminate this disease," said Richard Smalley, a professor of
nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston.
The $144.5 million plan will include the NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, an initiative to
team up researchers, physicians, companies and not-for-profit groups to develop nanotechnology
products for use in diagnosing and treating cancer.
Medicine already employs molecular size devices in the shape of natural and artificially
engineered proteins such as antibodies. "What's new is we can build new nano-objects that never
existed before," Smalley said.
These can be coated with homing devices such as antibodies, artificial or natural, that will find
cancerous cells. They could also carry drugs to kill the cells or imaging agents to help detect
cancer, said Dr. Mauro Ferrari, a special adviser to the NCI and a professor of biomedical
engineering at Ohio State University.
"By doing this on a very small scale there will be different effects," said Dr. Samuel Wickline of
Washington University in St. Louis.
"The possibilities are enormous for finding very small cancers far earlier than ever before and
treating them with powerful drugs at the tumor site alone, while at the same time reducing any
harmful side effects. This initiative will allow us to explore using this technology to its full
potential."
A drug delivered using a nano-device, for example, could precisely target cancer cells without
affecting healthy cells -- the way chemotherapy and radiation do now. Drugs based on
monoclonal antibodies -- engineered immune system proteins -- do this but the science could be
expanded, the experts said.
And liposomes, tiny capsules used to carry drugs, can be regarded as a "first generation" of
nano-scale drug delivery devices.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration, said her
agency was gearing up to approve new nano-devices in medicine.
"We see potential for novel drug delivery," Woodcock said. But any new product will have to pass
the standard hurdles of proving safe, effective and of being mass-produced.
There will also be some new bureaucratic hoops to pass through, Woodcock predicted, especially
if the minuscule new products might be categorized both as devices and as drugs or diagnostics.
NCI Deputy Director Anna Barker said the plan would include $90 million for at least five new
centers of excellence over five years, $16 million for training and $38 million in grants to
researchers for specific projects.