"A team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Porto in Portugal have just brought an alternative one step closer. They've developed materials capable of converting near-infrared light, or NIR, efficiently and safely into heat that can be highly targeted against cancer cells. Their materials are tin oxide (SnO x) nanoflakes, tiny particles that have a thickness of less than 20 nanometers (a nanometer is one-thousand-billionth of a meter)."
"A photothermal therapy is a noninvasive procedure that heats up cancer cells in order to destroy them. It works by infiltrating cancer cells with materials that absorb light and turn it into heat-in this case, the SnO x nanoflakes-which can be designed so that they accumulate specifically in tumor tissues. They are then targeted with light at a wavelength that gives these materials the energy they need to produce cancer-killing heat but which doesn't damage healthy tissues."
A team from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Porto developed tin oxide (SnO x) nanoflakes under 20 nanometers thick that efficiently convert near-infrared (NIR) light into heat. The nanoflakes can be engineered to accumulate selectively in tumor tissues and absorb NIR wavelengths that generate localized, cancer-killing temperatures while sparing healthy cells. The approach pairs SnO x nanoflakes with LED light to enable precise, noninvasive photothermal therapy. The materials offer potential advantages in thermal efficiency, biocompatibility, and affordability compared with other photothermal agents, making them promising candidates for safer, more accessible cancer treatments.
Read at WIRED
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