sábado, 21 de agosto de 2010

Natural Killer protege o cerebro

Veja no artigo publicado no JEM que células NK tem papel protetor contra agressão cerebral

http://jem.rupress.org/content/early/2010/08/04/jem.20092749.full.pdf

Sumário

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Cancer therapeutics: Nano tumour killer
Nano Lett. doi: 10.1021/nl100996u (2010)

Potential weapons against cancer are not limited to small-molecule drugs, with nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes among other candidates. The latest hot material, graphene — single-atom-thick sheets of carbon — seems to home in on tumours and, with the help of a laser, can heat up and kill them from within.

Zhuang Liu at Soochow University in Suzhou, China, and his colleagues coated nanometre-scale graphene sheets with polyethylene glycol to increase their solubility and stability in the body. They then injected the material into tumour-bearing mice (pictured left) and found high levels of graphene accumulation in their tumours after 24 hours (right).

The team administered the graphene to another set of 10 mice with breast tumours and shone lasers at the growths. The tumours disappeared the following day and did not regrow during the 40-day experiment. Tumours in control mice that did not receive either the graphene or the laser treatment grew rapidly, killing the mice in about 16 days.

Although a small toxicity study did not reveal any obvious side effects, the authors say that more safety studies are needed.


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