Nanotech Cocktail Could Halt Spread Of Cancer Cells.

Nanotech Cocktail Could Halt Spread Of Cancer Cells.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette (11/29, Dungan) reported that "researchers at the state's medical school and its land-grant university have discovered a way to magnetically trap tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream," findings that "might ultimately stop cancer's deadly metastasis and improve early diagnosis of the disease in its various forms." The researchers, from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, "describe their technique as an intravenous injection of a 'cocktail' of magnetic and gold-covered carbon nanotubes containing a special biological coating into the bloodstream to target the moving cancer cells. An ordinary magnet attached to the skin near the injection site would then attract and capture the cells." However, "it likely would take awhile before the scientists could bring an actual application to market, as further testing must be done."