Forty-eight hours, to be precise that's what the nano-robots needed to find the tumors, successfully anchor themselves to the vascular cells related to them and cause blood clots to cut off the blood supply. A small injection is able to strangle, reduce and even kill cancer in just 48 hours.
It is a fundamental step in cancer research. As explained by the researchers at the Arizona State University (ASU) and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China in Nature Biotechnology, this revolutionary technology has been successfully tested in mice and pigs. The next step is humans.
DNA programmed to end cancer
"Using tumor-bearing mouse models, we demonstrated that intravenously injected DNA nano-robots administer thrombin specifically to blood vessels associated with the tumor and induce intravascular thrombosis, resulting in tumor necrosis and growth inhibition," they explain. the study.
Although the idea of using "nanoscopic robots" is nothing new and, in fact, there are films from the sixties with that argument, DNA nano-robots are a relatively recent field of research. Basically, its operation is based on making the programmed DNA fold over itself as if it were origami and, at the right time, make it unfold ready for action.
That is, ready to administer certain drugs in certain cells. To do this, it uses the aptamers, chemical antibodies that specifically target certain proteins that abound on the surfaces of tumor cells (but not healthy cells).
A precision that promises to revolutionize chemotherapy
The most interesting thing is that the bots did not cause 'problems' in other parts of the body. That was the big problem with this therapeutic approach: that inaccuracy could cause serious problems. This has not been the case and for the first time, its reliability has been demonstrated in live animal models.
It is, as I said, a breakthrough in the fight against cancer. The current methods of chemotherapy are very aggressive and destroy many things in order to kill the tumor cells. The precision of this technique gives us very serious hopes of a revolution in the chemotherapeutic field. It only remains to wait for the trials with humans.