New Delhi: In a major medical breakthrough, the scientists of Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine at Kochi’s Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences have succeeded in turning nanoparticles of calcium phosphate – a biomineral naturally found in human bones – into fully biodegradable radio frequency (RF) agents and made them imageable by MRI and CT scans. This has paved the way for safer, cheaper diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The project has been funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
Currently, the most common treatment for cancer involves radiation and use of gamma rays to kill cancer cells. However, this inflicts collateral damage – healthy cells also get destroyed along with cancer cells. Radiation treatment with Cyber-Knife is much more precise but very expensive. In this situation, the most easily accessible and cheapest cancer treatment available today uses radio frequency (RF) microwaves. But for this method to work, the RF agent should be non-toxic to human body and preferentially accumulated in the tumour. This is where the development of calcium phosphate nanoparticles as a biodegradable RF agent becomes significant.
Commenting on the development, Dr Shanti Nair, Director, Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi mentioned: “The development of calcium phosphate nanoparticles with imageable properties for drug delivery applications is a major innovation in the quest to develop biodegradable contrast agents for imaging (diagnostic) purposes. Calcium phosphate is naturally found in human bones and is non-toxic and fully biodegradable. Now that its nanoparticles have been made imageable by MRI and CT scans, their accumulation in tumours can be verified and the MR contrast used for image-guided surgical treatment of cancer.”