New Israeli Nanoparticle Fights Cancer on Two Fronts

Israeli researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) successfully tested a nanoparticle that boosts the effectiveness of chemotherapy and immunotherapy in cancer treatment.

A combination of the two therapies to create chemo-immunotherapy is effective in targeting the cancer cells with chemotherapy while boosting the immune system to identify and target cancer cells with immunotherapy. But the treatment often casts too wide of a net, targeting the cancer cells as well as the healthy cells around them.

The new RNA-based nanoparticle, however, “is capable of operating in two different arenas,” Prof. Dan Peer, TAU’s vice president of research and development, told the Times of Israel.

The nanoparticle targets specific cells, increasing sensitivity of cancer cells to chemotherapy, Peer said, and also increasing the sensitivity of immune cells to cancer cells.

“Thus, with one precisely targeted nanoparticle, we provide two different treatments, at very different sites,” Peer added.

He said the research team tested the nanoparticle on both metastasized melanoma as well as a tumor and saw “positive effects” in both cases.

Peer lead the research at TAU’s Laboratory of Precision Nanomedicine at the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research along with Dr. Seok-beom Yong, a post-doctoral researcher from South Korea.

So far the nanoparticle delivery system has been successfully tested on mice and has made progress in in vitro studies, according to a peer-review study published in Advanced Materials.

The next step is beginning human trials.

“Chemo-immunotherapy is the most promising anti-cancer strategy today, and this development could make it more viable,” Yong told the Times of Israel.

Kate Norman, Bridges for Peace