the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology.pdf

Int. J. Biol. Sci. 2007, 3 108 International Journal of Biological Sciences ISSN 1449-2288 2007 3(2):108-110 © Ivyspring International Publisher. All rights reserved Letter to the editor Application of Nanotechnology in Cancer Research: Review of Progress in the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology Beeta Ehdaie Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA Correspondence to: Beeta Ehdaie, Email: be7v@ Received: 2006.11.27; Accepted: 2006.12.25; Published: 2007.01.25 Cancer has become the leading cause of death tive in targeting cancer cells and decreasing tumor size among Americans today. In 2006, over 500,000 Ameri- [6]. Aptamers are DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that cans will die due to cancer [11]. Cancer is a highly fold in tertiary conformations, which then are able to complex disease to understand because it entails mul- bind to targeting antigens [4]. They are advantageous tiple cellular physiological systems such as cell signal- because aptamers are fairly small in size and, there- ing and apoptosis [10]. Thus, the most common cancer fore, do not significantly impact the particle’s overall treatments are limited to chemotherapy, radiation, size. Also, aptamers are non-immunogenic and fairly and surgery. Limitations in cancer treatment are a stable with long circulation times in the body. Aptam-