It will be possible thanks to breakthrough in the field of nanomedicine. Arizona State University scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology сreated nanorobots to treat cancer tumors.
How Nanorobots work?
They made with, so called, DNA origami Technique. It enables the bottom-up self-assembly of micrometre-scale, three-dimensional structures with nanometre-precise features.
Each nanorobot is made from a flat, rectangular DNA origami sheet, 90 nanometers by 60 nanometers in size. A key blood-clotting enzyme (Thrombin) is attached to the surface of nanorobots. Thrombin can block blood flow, by clotting the blood within the vessels. If we will clog vessels which are supplying blood to the tumors, then tumor cell will simply die, due to lack of energy supply. Studies have shown that mice infected with tumors reacted positively to the nanorobots treatment within 24 hours and in 72 hours most of the tumors cells were dead. In order to program a nanorobot only attacks cancer cells, scientist DNA-aptamer.
- Aptamers are oligonucleotide or peptidemolecules that bind to a specific target molecule. Aptamers are usually created by selecting them from a large random sequence pool, but natural aptamers also exist in riboswitches. Aptamers can be used for both basic research and clinical purposes as macromolecular drugs. Aptamers can be combined with ribozymes to self-cleave in the presence of their target molecule.
The DNA aptamer could specifically target a protein, called nucleolin, that is present in high amounts only on the surface of tumor endothelial cells. (and are not found on the surface of healthy cells)
Once bounded to tumor's blood vessel surface, nanorobots were programmed to deliver an enzyme called thrombin that is key to blood clotting.