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Wednesday, 18th March 2009 (1280 views)

A method of detecting the location of tumours has been developed by a professor at a university in the US.

Joseph Irudayaraj used gold combined with magnetic particles to produce nanotechnology probes that could one day be used to destroy cancer cells, Nanowerk News reports.

Mr Irudayaraj, who is an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University, developed the probes so that they can be tracked with the use of an MRI machine, while the more precise process of microscopy can also be used to locate the particles.

"If we have a tumour, these probes should have the ability to latch on to it," he told the news source, adding that they can also be used to carry drugs to cancer cells.

This is the latest development to be made in the area of cancer research, with scientists at Brown University recently engineering gold nanoparticles that could be used to treat breast cancer.

 

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