Nano-technology and tiny submarines to attack Cancer

Tiny submarines 'can deliver cancer drugs straight to tumours'

Tiny submarines which can be injected into the blood to deliver cancer drugs straight to tumours have been developed by scientists.

Researchers hope that the machines could be used to treat patients within three years.

The news comes just weeks after a team of scientists announced that they had developed similar technology to carry out potentially life saving operations inside arteries.

The machines, part of a growing trend for so-called nano-technology, recall the plots of Hollywood science fiction movies, including 1987's Innerspace with Dennis Quaid, and the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, starring Raquel Welch.

Sending drugs straight to cancer cells will mean that they do not damage other surrounding healthy tissue, researchers said.

The submarines are 100 times smaller than cells, according to Dr Dan Peer, head of nano medicine at Tel Aviv University in Israel, who has already tested them in mice.

All the materials used to create the tiny machines occur naturally in the body, meaning they will not be attacked by the patient's immune system.

Dr Peer said: "We have tested this on mice and they were all fine and now we are ready to test it on people.

"The important thing is that we only use things that the body recognises, so its immune system won't attack them, as they do with other technologies."

He added: "We will probably start with blood cancers because the cells would be floating around and will be easier to find.

"But cancer is very clever and it will learn to avoid what we are doing and we will have to keep up - it is a war we are in.

"Although the film Fantastic Voyage was made before I was born, I have seen it is the kind of thing that I have dreamed of.

"Now I hope we on the verge of something similar."

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4527597/Tiny-submarines-can-deliver-cancer-drugs-straight-to-tumours.html)