Drug-smuggling nanoparticles target tumours

Drug-smuggling nanoparticles could be the latest recruits in the fight againstcancer. The first results from early-stage trials show that cancer drugs couriered by nanoparticles may reduce the size of tumours in humans.

Researchers from BIND Biosciences in Boston filled nanoparticles with the cancer drug docetaxel and injected them into the blood of 17 people who had cancers that are normally resistant to the drug. Forty-two days later, two of the volunteers’ tumours had shrunk in size significantly, and the rest of the volunteers’ tumours had not grown.