Angela Zhang, a
teenager who recently graduated from high school, may have found a cure
for cancer. Over the past few years, she has researched cancer stem cells (CSCs), those pesky cells that are responsible for causing tumor growth yet are often resistant to current cancer therapies.
Zhang found a way to target and kill
these CSCs with a revolutionary new nanoparticle system that she likens
to a Swiss Army Knife because of its many functions: It is capable of
targeting tumors, eradicating cancer cells, and monitoring treatment
responses all at the same time.
She designed a gold and iron oxide-based
nanoparticle system that attaches to tumors; the gold and iron-oxide
components allow the tumors to be visible on MRIs. Once the tumors are
visible, they can be targeted individually, and Zhang’s system allows
for a controlled release of the cancer drug salinomycin to the site of
the tumor.
This revolutionary new treatment would
kill the specific cancer cells while leaving surrounding healthy cells
unharmed. That would vastly improve the quality of life for cancer
patients, meaning no more debilitating chemotherapy treatments, for example.
Her project is called Design
of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing
Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells, and she won $100,000–first place–in the 2011 Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology for her research.
“At the heart of
my nanosystem is the drug delivery capabilities,” Angela wrote to us in
an email. “My nanoparticle was designed to be preloaded with a cancer
drug that would be released directly and selectively at the tumor site
to eradicate cancer cells. The greatest advantage that a drug delivery
system has over many current cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy,
which tends to attack cancer and healthy cells, is minimization of
toxicity to non malignant/healthy cells.”
She said that the hope of the project
was to “personalize cancer treatment” by improving treatment efficacy
while seriously improving the patient’s quality of life during cancer treatment.
When the system was tested on mice, the tumors almost completely disappeared.
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