The nanoparticle technology has great potential for other existing cancer drugs that have been shelved because they are too toxic or excreted too rapidly, Cryns noted. "We can potentially make those drugs more effective against solid tumors by increasing their delivery to the tumor and by shielding normal cells from their toxicity," he said. "This nanotechnology platform has the potential to expand our arsenal of chemotherapy drugs to treat cancer."

"Working with both professors O'Halloran and Cryns has enabled us to develop the nanobins and hopefully create a new platform for the effective treatment of triple negative breast cancer," Ahn said. "Having both a basic science mentor and breast cancer mentor is ideal training for me as a future physician-scientist."

Looking ahead, the challenge now is to refine and improve the technology. "How do we make it more toxic to cancer cells and less toxic to healthy cells?" asked Cryns, also the director of SUCCEED, a Northwestern Medicine program to improve the quality of life for breast cancer survivors.

Northwestern scientists are working on decorating the nanobins with antibodies that recognize markers on tumor cells to increase the drug's uptake by the tumor. They also want to put two or more drugs into the same nanobin and deliver them together to the tumor.

"Once you fine-tune this, you could use what would otherwise be a lethal or highly toxic dose of the drug, because a good deal of it will be directly released in the tumor," O'Halloran said.

Source: Northwestern University