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Sept. 16, 2004 – The war on cancer has an unusual ally: the U.S. Department of Defense. The department has allocated more than $1.5 billion since 1992 for research efforts aimed at eradicating breast cancer. In recent years, it has added nanotechnology-based approaches to its arsenal.
Beneficiaries include startups such as Nanoplex Technologies Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif., and BioForce Nanosciences Inc. in Ames, Iowa, as well as Naomi Halas, scientist at Rice University in Houston. Their initiatives may help develop better research tools, diagnostics and therapies for understanding, identifying and treating breast cancer.
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The funds also let companies test and tweak technologies for applications as diverse as drug development and product labeling.
The department recently awarded $145,800 to Nanoplex to develop optical detection tags for early diagnosis of breast cancer. The grant allowed Nanoplex to concentrate on methods for making biocompatible nanoparticles that produce an optical signal in the presence of near infrared light.
“We wanted to work on making the particles smaller,” said Sharron Penn, Nanoplex’s director of chemistry. “If we can make them smaller, then they can move around more freely in a cell. But we also had to make the particles smaller without loss of signal.”
Nanoplex specializes in optical tags that can be used to detect cancer cells in samples of blood or tissue. The company designs nanoparticles that have metal and silica layers. Based on their composition and shape, the nanoparticles vibrate in a characteristic and measurable way when exposed to specific light waves. Near infrared light is particularly attractive for diagnosis because it can penetrate tissue and blood without causing it harm.
The work complements Nanoplex’s overall strategy to market optical tags for not only life science applications, but also for labeling products such as designer clothing to thwart counterfeiting.
BioForce Nanosciences received nearly $144,000 in 2003 to build a research tool for understanding cellular processes in cancer. The company specializes in nanoarray technologies that allow researchers to study proteins that may play a role in cancer development. The nanoarray format, which allows for thousands of tests to be performed at a time, eventually could be used for screening cancers to determine the appropriate chemotherapeutic treatment.
“The advantage to having smaller spots is you don’t have to have as much sample,” said Kristi Harkins, BioForce Nanoscience’s director of business operations. Less breast tissue would be needed from biopsies, and the small sample would suffice for multiple tests, she said.
BioForce Nanosciences is developing similar methods for detecting viruses. Both approaches rely on chips dotted with bits of antibodies or proteins that bind onto a target virus or cancer biomarker. An atomic force microscope is used to detect what gets captured. The nanoarray approach can be used for research, drug testing and monitoring, and possibly even diagnostics.
Starting in fiscal year 2001, the Army added a new category to reward innovative approaches for eliminating breast cancer. Halas was the sole recipient of the nearly $3-million Innovator Award last year, under the fiscal year 2002 budget. The next round of winners is expected after this month.
Like Nanoplex’s researchers, Halas and her team at Rice take advantage of the size and optical properties of nanoparticles to detect cancer cells. Halas invented gold nanoshells, or precisely designed particles with metallic shells surrounding a silica core. Antibodies or proteins attached to the shells latch onto the cancer cells and, when blasted with near infrared light, send an optical signal.
Halas, an engineering professor with expertise in chemistry and physics, discovered that near infrared light would heat up nanoshells and the neighboring cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. The team now is working on a noninvasive approach for simultaneously detecting and treating breast cancer.