Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 16 : Researchers at Amrita Hospital in Kochi have turned a substance commonly found in bones into a potent weapon that can seek and kill tumor cells.
Tiny particles of calcium phosphate, a bio mineral that is a natural constituent of the bone, when doped with similarly small iron particles, can become what medical scientists call a theranostic agent, a substance that serves both diagnostic and therapeutic functions.
The team led by Shanti Kumar Nair and Manzoor Koyakutty of the Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine at AMRITA demonstrated that these iron-doped calcium phosphate nanoparticles, at least 10-fold smaller than the smallest dust particle, can be guided to the liver where tumour-afflicted tissues can be scarred using radio waves.
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