http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/ January 2012 http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17a.asp By combining a nanoparticle that is readily visible in X-ray computed tomography scans with a molecule that targets tumor lymph vessels and other tumor tissues, a research team from the University of California, San Diego and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has developed a new imaging agent that provides high-fidelity CT images of tumors and their edges. This work was published in the journal, Angewandte Chemie International Edition. http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17b.asp Quantum dots, small semiconductor nanoparticles that fluoresce brightly with sharply defined colors, have tremendous promise as biomedical imaging agents except for one problem—most are made from potentially hazardous materials such as cadmium and selenium. Now, however, a collaborative effort between researchers at Stanford University and Xiamen University in China has produced a stable, biocompatible quantum dot that appears to have the desired set of properties needed for biomedical imaging. The team reported its work in the journal Nano Letters. http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17c.asp Using technologies common to the semiconductor industry, a team of investigators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Liquidia Technologies has created a polymer nanoparticle that can encapsulate large loads of therapeutic molecules that may have use in treating prostate cancer. The research, led by Joseph DeSimone, co-principal investigator of the Carolina Center for Cancer Nanotechnology, was published in the journal Nano Letters. http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17d.asp One of the ways in which cancer cells evade anticancer therapy is by producing a protein that pumps drugs out of the cell before these compounds can exert their cell-killing effects. A research team at Northwestern University has found that biocompatible iron oxide-titanium dioxide nanoparticles can bypass this pump and enable DNA-damaging anticancer drugs to reach the cell nucleus. The team that developed this nanoparticle reported their findings in the journal Cancer Research. http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17e.asp Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a strategy for identifying what could be called tumor uptake molecules for use on nanoparticles. This new class of tumor-targeting agents boosts the amount of drug-loaded nanoparticles that get into cancer cells. Omid Farokhzad and Robert Langer, both members of the MIT-Harvard Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, led the team that published their findings in the journal ACS Nano. http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17f.asp Radiation therapy is an important part of head and neck cancer therapy, but most head and neck tumors have a built-in mechanism that makes them resistant to radiation. To overcome this resistance, researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Southern California have developed a nanoparticle formulation that interferes with the resistance mechanism, and as a result, increases the efficacy of radiation therapy in a mouse model of head and neck cancer. This work was published in the journal Integrative Biology. http://nano.cancer.gov/action/news/2012/jan/nanotech_news_2012-1-17g.asp