Magnets to drive drugs

Tiny particles of iron may help doctors deliver targeted cancer drugs using the pull of a magnet, says report.

Tiny particles of iron may help doctors deliver targeted cancer drugs using the pull of a magnet, according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh.

And such treatments could potentially improve the effectiveness of tumour-killing drugs while reducing the painful side effects associated with traditional treatments.

"It's a new way of driving drugs around the body. Drug trafficking, if you will," Andrew Harrison, a materials chemist at the University of Edinburgh, was quoted as saying.

"If you tether the drug to a small magnetic particle, then you can use an external magnetic field to make sure it gets to the appropriate part of the body and stays there," he added.

The new magnetic treatment would help doctors to target particular cancer cells without having any side effects.

In the last few years, researchers have been working on several strategies to provide a more specific attack on cancer cells by using antibodies, which are immune proteins that attach to targets with incredible specificity, to guide the flow of anti-tumour drugs. But these antibodies do not work in all patients.

So, Harrison and his collaborators are trying a novel approach by injecting ironbound drugs in liquid solution and then immediately drawing them towards tumours with a magnetic field which would not only deliver concentrated doses of strong medication, but also limit the effect of the drug to a particular area of the patients body.