What can you do with a diamond so small that you can’t even see it? Well, aside from irritating your fiancé, you could try to kill cancer cells with it. How did this all start? Well, over time, cancer cells can become resistant to drugs. The cells accomplish this by literally throwing out all of the drugs we put into them…rendering the therapies useless. This is similar to a lover’s spat where one person’s belongings get thrown out the window.
So what is a researcher to do? One option is to bulk up the cancer drugs with nanodiamonds – literally, tiny diamonds. By attaching the drug to a microscopic diamond, researchers make the final product too big to be thrown out that so-called window. The drugs can still enter, but cancer cells can’t get rid of them. The great thing about diamonds is that they don’t harm us (as many of you will attest to). This way, we get all the benefits of better drug efficacy, without added side-effects.
It appears that researchers are rather fond of sparkly things. Although this approach has yet to be tested in people, scientists are trying out nanodiamonds in other areas as well. For instance, tissue engineering for bone replacements. Can you imagine a future where your grandmother gets a new “blinged out” replacement hip?
To read more on nanodiamonds, click here.
