Scientists of Altai State University and IIC SB RAS have developed nanoparticles that can help in the diagnosis of oncological diseases

4 December 2020 Department of Information and Media Communications
The authoritative scientific journal Nanoscale, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry of Great Britain, published the results of a joint research work of scientists from the Russian-American Anti-Cancer Center of Altai State University and A.V. Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Researchers at the Russian-American Anti-Cancer Center of Altai State University, together with colleagues - teachers of the Department of Physicochemical Biology and Biotechnology of the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Altai State University under the leadership of Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Olga Lavrik, are exploring the possibility of using nanoparticles to improve the efficiency of early diagnosis of cancer. Their next step was the implementation of a project with scientists from A.V. Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, SB RAS.

In particular, the article in the British edition presents the results of the development and use of hybrid nanoparticles containing complexes of molybdenum and single-domain antibodies. According to scientists, such particles can act as a means of visualizing a cancerous tumor.

“Modern science is, as a rule, interdisciplinary research, since all important and interesting achievements occur at the intersection of scientific directions. This also happened in our case. Colleagues from the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences suggested that we jointly created nanoparticles with the addition of a biological molecule for targeted delivery of a nanocluster to tumor cells, in order to visualize cancer cells'', explains the leading researcher of the Russian-American Anti-Cancer Center of Altai State University, Candidate of Biological Sciences Dmitry Shcherbakov. “To obtain such particles, we provided a protein molecule obtained using a bacterial prokaryotic system, which in combination with nanoclusters of colleagues from Novosibirsk showed the result we needed. In simple terms, we have a nanoparticle or nucleus, which we envelop with protein molecules - single-domain antibodies C7b, resulting in a kind of nanocapsule. This biological construct, when introduced into the blood, not only reveals tumor cells, but also begins to accumulate in them, thereby visualizing cancer cells.

Dmitry Shcherbakov also added that thanks to this development, it is possible to localize the tumor at the initial stage, when the affected tissue is still almost indistinguishable from healthy tissue.

In addition, scientists are further considering the possibility of selectively affecting cancer cells using the nanoclusters they have developed.

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