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Photo gallery – Humble protein, nanoparticles tag-team to kill cancer cells |
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010 |
Images from a study by UNC researchers that found that a normally benign protein in the human body appears to be able – when paired with nanoparticles – to zero in on and kill certain cancer cells, without having to also load those particles with chemotherapy drugs. Read more about the study here.
 | Transferrin-carrying nanoparticles that have targeted and permeated Ramos cancer
cells. Areas of yellow represent the intracellular compartments of the cells where the
nanoparticles reside. Areas of red represent intracellular compartments
without nanoparticles.
Image: Shaomin Tian, UNC-Chapel Hill. | | |  | Images of Ramos cells targeted with nanoparticles. Particles carrying human transferrin (white dots, above image and close-up insert) were able to zero in on, attach to and enter cells (grey spheres).
However, in a control experiment (image below), nanoparticles bonded with a different
form of tranferrin had minimal or no effect on Ramos and other cancer cells.
Images: Victoria J. Madden, UNC-Chapel Hill. | | |  |
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Science & Technology