Researchers in UK develop new technique to make cancer treatment more effective, affordable

A pioneering new technique that could make light-based cancer treatment more effective and safer for patients, while reducing its cost, has been developed by researchers from a British university.

Light-based or photodynamic rapy is alrey a clinically-approved treatment, which uses drugs that only work when exposed to light to destroy cancer cells. However, many of se drugs are frequently toxic even without light, causing many side effects in patients and leing to treatment failure.

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study carried out by Jose Ricardo Aguilar Cosme, a PhD student at University of Sheffield, and overseen by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from varsity's Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Oncology and Metabolism, has developed tiny carbon naparticles that can deliver cancer drugs to tumours, university said in a release on Saturday.

researchers have sought to improve se drugs by using small carbon dots as a way to get drug to tumour. Carbon dots are fluorescent naparticles with very little toxicity, making m extremely useful for this application. se naparticles were me using common ingredients such as sucrose and citric acid, which occur naturally in various fruits.

Two different versions of carbon dots were developed as part of research, one with drug bound on surface and or where drug was inside dot. 

"When drug was bound to surface of a carbon dot it was four times less toxic without light while maintaining its cancer-killing effect in a lab model of melama skin cancer. This increases overall effectiveness of drug," said Frederik Claeyssens, who supervised research. 

"An ditional vant of carbon dots is that y glow, also kwn as fluorescence, which makes m very simple to locate. We observed that particles rapidly enter tumour cells and ir fluorescence makes it simple to monitor how y move round body and how y accumulate in tumours," he said. 

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Helen Bryant, who also supervised research, said research has potential to produce cheaper anti-cancer drugs with greater efficiency to kill tumours and less side-effects in patients.