Science and Technology Facilities Council
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X-rays shed light on magnetic bacteria to improve cancer therapy
A team of scientists from the University of Edinburgh, working alongside colleagues at the STFC Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, have identified that certain naturally occurring bacteria are able to create tiny magnets that could be intensified and developed for use in cancer treatments. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, this research has been published online in the scientific publication, Nature Nanotechnology.
For many years scientists have been trying to take advantage of the natural ability that certain bacteria have for creating these chains of tiny magnets that are less than 1/1000th of the size of a human hair. Known as ‘bio-nanomagnets’, they could hold the key to creating effective, targeted anti-cancer therapies. Guided magnetically, they could be used as miniature shuttles for moving drugs around the human body to specific sites, particularly to cancer tumours. The heat generated from another external magnet to make the nanomagnets vibrate very rapidly would then also destroy the surrounding diseased cells without affecting healthy tissue.
In their natural state bio-nanomagnets are not normally effective for this kind of application as their magnetic properties are not ideally suited. Now, researchers from the University of Edinburgh have been able to strengthen these bio-magnets by feeding them a cobalt metal solution. By using the STFC Daresbury Laboratory’s extremely advanced and powerfully intense light facility, known as the Synchrotron (SRS) light source, this team of scientists has used highly polarised X-rays to prove that the cobalt was successfully incorporated into the bio-nanomagnets, leading to beneficial changes in their magnetic properties.
Dr Neil Telling, a research scientist in Magnetic Spectroscopy at STFC Daresbury Laboratory said, “Using x-rays in this way to understand the properties of bio-nanomagnets is an area that has been highly active at Daresbury for some time, thanks largely to pioneering work performed by scientists at Manchester University. Daresbury’s SRS light source was the first of its kind in the world and it’s great to see it play a significant role in the study of materials that could be used for future cancer therapies.”
Notes to Editors
For further information contact:
- Wendy Taylor MCIPR
Press Officer
STFC Daresbury Laboratory
Tel: +44 (0) 1925 603 232
Fax: +44 (0) 1925 603 195
Images are available upon request.
This research paper has been published as an advance online publication at http://www.nature.com/nnano/index.html.
‘Controlled cobalt doping of magnetosomes in vivo’
Sarah Staniland, Wyn Williams, Neil Telling, Gerrit Van Der Laan, Andrew Harrison & Bruce Ward
Paper reference: doi:10.1038/nnano.2008.35
