Nanomachines that drill into cancer cells killing them in just 60 seconds developed by scientists

Authored by yahoo.com and submitted by dunkin1980

Nanomachines which can drill into cancer cells, killing them in just 60 seconds, have been developed by scientists.

The tiny spinning molecules are driven by light, and spin so quickly that they can burrow their way through cell linings when activated.

In one test conducted at Durham University the nanomachines took between one and three minutes to break through the outer membrane of prostate cancer cell, killing it instantly.

A graphic showing the tiny nanomachine Credit: Tour Group/Rice University

The 'motor' is a rotor-like chain of atoms that can be prompted to move in one direction, causing the molecule to rotate at high speed.

Dr Robert Pal of Durham University said: "We are moving towards realising our ambition to be able to use light-activated nanomachines to target cancer cells such as those in breast tumours and skin melanomas, including those that are resistant to existing chemotherapy.

“Once developed, this approach could provide a potential step change in non-invasive cancer treatment and greatly improve survival rates and patient welfare globally."

Motorised molecules that target diseased cells may deliver drugs or kill the cells by drilling into the cell membranes.Credit: Tour Group/Rice University

The scientists, whose work is reported in the journal Nature, created several different light-activated motorised molecules designed to home in on specific cells.

They found that the nanomachines needed to spin at two to three million times per second to overcome nearby obstacles and outpace natural Brownian motion, the erratic movement of microscopic particles suspended in fluid.

The molecules could be used either to tunnel into cells carrying therapeutic agents, or to act as killer weapons that blast open tumour membranes.

Videos showed the cancer cell membranes bubbling under the assault.

Without an ultraviolet trigger, the motor molecules located target cells but then remained harmlessly on their surfaces.

The prostate cancer cells start to 'bleb' or disintegrate after just 60 seconds, as seen in the bottom image Credit: Robert Pal/Durham University)

When triggered, the molecules rapidly drilled through the cell membranes.

Dr James Tour, a member of the international team from Rice University in Houston, US, said: "These nanomachines are so small that we could park 50,000 of them across the diameter of a human hair, yet they have the targeting and actuating components combined in that diminutive package to make molecular machines a reality for treating disease.

"In this study we have shown that we can drill into cells, animal cells, human cells using these nanomachines, they will attach to the surface and then a light will be shone upon them and they will drill right into the cell.

"For many years I never had envisioned the nanomachines being used medically, I though they were way too small, because they are much much smaller than a cell, but now this work has really changed my thoughts on this and I think therapeutically this will be a whole new way to treat patients, it's going to be an excellent application for cancer treatment, not just for killing of cells but for the treatment of cells, interacting with the human body using molecular machines."

The researchers are already proceeding with experiments in microorganisms and small fish and hope to move to rodents soon, ahead of clinical trials in humans if animal testing is successful.

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shiruken on August 31st, 2017 at 15:01 UTC »

This title is a little misleading because most people have no tangible concept of what a "nanomachine" actually is. These aren't self-contained, self-propelled objects nor are they anything like the nanomachines from science fiction.

What is presented in the research is a molecular motor that can be positioned on top of a cell membrane and then activated using UV light. The light causes the molecule to spin, allowing it to disrupt the cell membrane and "drill" through it. Here's a video of the molecules (in red) penetrating into the interior of a cell. The damage caused by the rupture in the cell membrane was characteristic of cellular death. All of this was done in vitro in a petri dish.

The cancer aspect of the study arises from the functionalization of the molecular motor so that it selectively binds to specific cell-surface targets that are overexpressed in certain cancers.

So yes, objects that certainly qualify as being "nanomachines" did "drill" into a cancer cell and quickly kill it. It's just a little more complicated than the title implies.

Here's the actual scholarly article in the journal Nature: V. García-López et al., Molecular machines open cell membranes. Nature. 548, 567–572 (2017).

Abstract: Beyond the more common chemical delivery strategies, several physical techniques are used to open the lipid bilayers of cellular membranes. These include using electric and magnetic fields, temperature, ultrasound or light to introduce compounds into cells, to release molecular species from cells or to selectively induce programmed cell death (apoptosis) or uncontrolled cell death (necrosis). More recently, molecular motors and switches that can change their conformation in a controlled manner in response to external stimuli have been used to produce mechanical actions on tissue for biomedical applications. Here we show that molecular machines can drill through cellular bilayers using their molecular-scale actuation, specifically nanomechanical action. Upon physical adsorption of the molecular motors onto lipid bilayers and subsequent activation of the motors using ultraviolet light, holes are drilled in the cell membranes. We designed molecular motors and complementary experimental protocols that use nanomechanical action to induce the diffusion of chemical species out of synthetic vesicles, to enhance the diffusion of traceable molecular machines into and within live cells, to induce necrosis and to introduce chemical species into live cells. We also show that, by using molecular machines that bear short peptide addends, nanomechanical action can selectively target specific cell-surface recognition sites. Beyond the in vitro applications demonstrated here, we expect that molecular machines could also be used in vivo, especially as their design progresses to allow two-photon, near-infrared and radio-frequency activation.

shiningPate on August 31st, 2017 at 12:50 UTC »

And what makes them specifically select cancer cells? This sounds like somebody just invented the "grey goo" of nanotech horror stories

bigpresh on August 31st, 2017 at 12:15 UTC »

The article, and the linked nature.com article, are very light on details on how these nanomachines target cancerous cells, which is the bit I'm most curious about. Destroying cells indiscriminately is pretty easy, it's destroying only the ones you want to target without damaging the surrounding cells which is trickier.

Also,

They found that the nanomachines needed to spin at two to three million times per second

... wow, that's pretty quick.