9 months ago
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This discovery opens the prospect of a new, major front in the fight against cancer; and for 64-year-old cancer patient Robin Dean, the idea of something like that brings a whole new and refreshed perspective to her battle to live.
Robin Dean has worked with the Cancer Institute for almost a decade; how ironic that she herself was diagnosed in March with breast cancer.
Dean says, "It's a life changing experience."
Even though she's enduring chemo treatments she's never missed a day of work. Dean will have surgery this fall. She is thrilled to hear of the new developments out of UALR.
Scientists there, partnering with doctors at UAMS, announced a medical breakthrough Monday morning. They've discovered a way to attach nano particles to cancer cells in lab rats, lighting the diseased cells up in shades of gold. This makes it easier for doctors with lasers to kill the cancerous cells, leaving the surrounding good cells alone. The UALR lab is where most of the discovery came together.
Researcher Enkeleda Dervishi and the team watched nano particles under high powered-microscopes tag cancer cells.
Dervishi says, "The material we work with is so exciting. It's amazing we can do such things. We're looking forward to every day. It's exciting to come to work every day."
All of this could someday mean people like Robin Dean might be able to avoid things like chemo and surgery.
Dean says, "My son called and said 'Mom did you see the breaking news on Arkansas Business?' so I quickly read about it the idea that we might have access to that in a decade and I wouldn't have to be going through what I'm going through right now."
So far the procedure has only worked on lab rats. It still needs further testing before it's approved for human use. Doctors at UAMS predict this type of treatment could be available for cancer patients in the next three to five years.
These findings were published in the latest issue of the Journal of Biomedical Optics.
