14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers from the Yeshiva University Albert Einstein College of Medicine announce the development of a new type of nanoparticle, which they say could protect patients against the harmful effects of radiotherapy. This course of treatment is oftentimes used on cancer patients, but it has a number of negative side-effects, not the least of which being the destruction of numerous cells in the bone marrow. The new, melanin-covered particles proved to be fairly efficient in preventing this from happening, which means that, in the near future, radiation therapy could become a little less risky.
“A technique for shielding normal cells from radiation damage would allow doctors to administer higher doses of radiation to tumors, making the treatment more effective,” explains the senior author of the new investigation, Ekaterina Dadachova, PhD. She is an associate professor of nuclear medicine and of microbiology and immunology at the AECM, and also the Sylvia and Robert S. Olnick Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research at the College. The expert says that the technique has already been successfully tested on unsuspecting lab mice.
In radiotherapy, a massive instrument is used to deliver doses of radiation to cancer tumors. While it's true that the radiation destroys cancer cells, it also destroys healthy cells, and therefore healthcare experts need to limit the amounts they deliver. Melanin, on the other hand, is a naturally-occurring pigment that gives skin and hair its color. It is also known to protect from radiation to some extent, and so the AECM team figured it could be a good place to start in designing a protection method against radiotherapy. Melanin also plays an important role in protecting the skin from the effects of sunlight.
“We wanted to devise a way to provide protective melanin to the bone marrow. That's where blood is formed, and the bone-marrow stem cells that produce blood cells are extremely susceptible to the damaging effects of radiation,” the team leader says. Details of the innovative work appear in the current issue of the esteemed International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics. “The ability to protect the bone marrow will allow physicians to use more extensive cancer-killing radiation therapies and this will hopefully translate into greater tumor response rates,” adds the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Chair in Microbiology & Immunology at the university, Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD.