Cancer immunotherapy: with nanotubes – three times faster

Nanotubes increase the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapy Dmitry Safin, Compulenta

A group of researchers from Yale University (USA) has experimentally proved that the use of single–layer carbon nanotubes can significantly increase the effectiveness of adoptive (from the English adopt - accept, assimilate – VM) immunotherapy of cancer diseases.

The procedure of adoptive immunotherapy begins with the selection of blood from the patient. It contains a certain number of T-lymphocytes (cells of the immune system), but they are not enough to fight the tumor; the task is to stimulate their development in the laboratory. Specialists artificially create clusters of relevant antigens (substances that can cause an immune response) and bring the concentration of T-lymphocytes to the required value, after which the blood is transfused back.

Previously, researchers have already reported on the unexpectedly high efficiency of carbon nanotubes: when antigens hit their surface, the development of T-lymphocytes was much more active than when using the same volume of antigens and another (for example, polystyrene) substrate.

Now scientists have found out that the outstanding properties of nanotubes are explained by the presence of defects around which antigens accumulate.

In "conventional" adoptive immunotherapy, it takes several weeks to increase the concentration of T-lymphocytes to the desired level, and the use of nanotubes can reduce this period by three times.

Carbon nanotubes can cause some harm to the body (say, clog a blood vessel), so it is necessary to find a reliable way to extract them from the blood before transfusion. "This option of using nanotubes seems really promising,– sums up the lead author of the work Tarek Fahmy. "If we manage to solve all the issues, we will create a safe and original methodology."

The full version of the report is published in the journal Langmuir: Tarek R. Fadel et al., Clustering of Stimuli on Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Bundles Enhances Cellular Activation. 

Prepared based on materials from Yale University: Carbon Nanotubes Boost Cancer-Fighting Cells.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru 21.04.2010