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Monday, 1st December 2008 (1648 views)

A new tool will help Australian students to understand how gold nanoparticles can be used to treat cancer.

AccessNano, a state-of-the-art educational resource, has been designed to introduce nanotechnology into Australian classrooms and was launched in Melbourne by Julia Gillard, the country's minister for education.

The Australian Office of Nanotechnology developed the application after receiving feedback from science teachers that pupils were asking to be taught about the subject.

However, many teachers did not have the relevant knowledge or resources to educate children about the topic, but the new tool means the subject can now be incorporated into curriculums.

It covers areas like performance materials, shape memory alloys and medical fields such as diagnostics and drug delivery – which gold nanoparticles are frequently featured in.

Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco and Georgia Institute of Technology have developed ways to target cancerous material using miniscule particles of gold.

Tumours can be destroyed by heating up gold nanoparticles with thermal energy, while avoiding healthy tissue.

 

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