DNA “nanotrain” for targeted cancer drug delivery


The nanotrain cost-effectively delivers high doses of drugs to precisely targeted cancers and other medical maladies without leaving behind toxic nano-clutter.

“The beauty of the nanotrain is that by using different disease biomarkers you can hitch different types of DNA probes as the train’s ‘locomotive’ to recognize and target different types of cancers,” said Weihong Tan of the University of Florida. “We’ve precisely targeted leukemia, lung and liver cancer cells, and because the DNA probes are so precise in targeting only specific types of cancer cells we’ve seen dramatic reduction in drug toxicity in comparison to standard chemotherapies, which don’t discriminate well between cancerous and healthy cells.”