In 2008, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Ovarian Cancer Institute developed a potentialtreatment to fight cancer using magnetic nanoparticles designed to attach themselves to cancer cells. They found in their groundbreaking tests on mice that the particles not only attached to cancer cells, but they also moved those cells.

Nanoparticles, in brown, attach themselves to cancer cells, in violet, from the human abdominal cavity.

(Credit: Ken Scarberry/Georgia Tech)

In what may well prove to be some of the most exciting health news in the year to come, the group announced in the journal Nanomedicine in December and further publicized on Tuesday that it has replicated the study on human cancer cells, with the nanoparticles appearing to be every bit as effective.

Lead Georgia Tech researcher Ken Scarberry explains how it works:

Often, the lethality of cancers is not attributed to the original tumor but to the establishment of distant tumors by cancer cells that exfoliate from the primary tumor. Circulating tumor cells can implant at distant sites and give rise to secondary tumors. Our technique is designed to filter the peritoneal fluid or blood, and remove these free-floating cancer cells, which should increase longevity by preventing the continued metastatic spread of the cancer.

READ MORE:   Cnet.com