Early-stage research has confirmed that 99 percent of melanoma cells have been eradicated in the laboratory, potentially offering a new cancer treatment option, experts say.
Scientists in the United States have discovered a way to destroy cancer cells by stimulating molecules to vibrate with near-infrared light.
Researchers found this method to be 99 percent effective on laboratory cultures of human melanoma cells.
Their method involves stimulating small dye molecules used in medical imaging with near-infrared light, causing them to vibrate.
It forms something called a plasmon. This is when the electrons in molecules rapidly oscillate back and forth, similar to ocean waves. This destroys the membranes of cancer cells.
The study results were published in December. natural chemistry.
“The vibrations activated by near-infrared radiation mean that anything surrounded by that molecule, in this case cancer cells, is destroyed,” said Dr. Lead author Ciceron Ayala Orozco said: he told Euronews Next.
Researchers have so far found the “molecular jackhammer” method to be effective in the lab and in mice, but “the challenge is to translate this into human treatment options,” he said. added. However, this can take a long time.
Instead of waiting 15 to 20 years for clinical applications, he hopes to be able to prove molecular jackhammer safety sooner.
“Similar classes of molecules are already in clinical use,” Ayala-Orozco said, hoping the research could “accelerate clinical translation.”
The main obstacle to applying this type of method to humans is potential “side effects and toxicity,” he added.
“New treatment for cancer”
Dr Nishanti Duggan, Science Engagement Manager at Cancer Research UK, who was not involved in the study, said: ‘The big challenge in cancer research is designing drugs to which cancer cells have no resistance. There is,” he said.
“This study uses infrared light to stimulate specific molecules to make cells vibrate, increasing the likelihood of killing them. Cells are unlikely to develop resistance to this process.” Although this is very early-stage research, this idea could lead to new treatments for several types of cancer, she added.
Rice University scientists have previously used light-activated molecules to destroy bacteria, cancer cells, and fungi, using visible light rather than ultraviolet light.
But this new method uses a molecular jackhammer, which is much faster than the molecular motors used previously and is based on the work of Nobel Prize winner Bernard Feringa.
“Every time light hits a molecule, that molecule begins to expand and contract,” Ayala-Ozoszko explained. “In one second, molecules vibrate or vibrate a trillion times.”
“It’s so fast that the mechanical forces around the molecule caused by its vibrations can cause biological structures to disintegrate,” he says.
Near-infrared light can penetrate deeper into the body than visible light, the researchers added.
The therapeutic efficacy of molecular jackhammer was tested by applying it to mice by intratumoral injection. This means the molecules were injected directly into the melanoma tumor.
advertisementFive of the 10 mice in one of the four groups were tumor-free at seven months, making the method about 50% effective.
“At the right dose, this molecule is safe,” Ayala-Ozoko said, adding that when the light is activated on a tumor, the irradiated tumor cells die.
