Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials

at Wake Forest University

 

New nano-therapeutics offer hope...


 

Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases to afflict humanity. During our lifetimes, most of use will know at least one person that is diagnosed with cancer. Remarkable progress has been made in the last few decades in our fight against the one hundred or more diseases that make up what we know as cancer. Yet, cancer remains one of the gravest threats to human health.


The simple fact is that any specific form of the disease and its progression can be quite different for any given person. The program at WFU Nanotech focuses on the development of novel "smart" approaches to cancer that can be tailored to the individual. Here are a few of our activities...


Smart nanoTherapeutics for Cancer Program at NANOTECH is based upon novel routes to localized hyperthermia and variations therein.  Hyperthermia (or photo-ablative) techniques destroy tumor- tissues through the direct application of heat.  The tumor tissue that is heated to above about 52 C dies. Unfortunately it is challenging to get only a small volume of tissue within the body to this temperature without heating the surrounding tissue.  Thus tumor eradication using this technique requires a very local application of heating.   Researchers at WFU Nanotech in conjunction with the Comprehensive Cancer Center of WFU have devised a novel approach to this problem. 


For more information: visit the webpages of the researchers