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Nanorobot with hidden weapon kills cancer cells (ki.se)
20 points by gmays 9 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments



Looks like gold nanoparticles kill glioblastoma colon cancer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40819864 :

>> He emphasizes, "Any scientist can already use our model at the design stage of their own research to instantly narrow down the number of nanoparticle variants requiring experimental verification."

>> "Modeling Absorption Dynamics of Differently Shaped Gold Glioblastoma and Colon Cells Based on Refractive Index Distribution in Holotomographic Imaging" (2024) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202400778

> Holotomography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holotomography

>>> Could part of the cancer-killing [200nm nanoparticle gold stars] be more magnetic than Gold (Au), for targeting treatment?

Magnets, nano robots, NIRS targeting,

"Whole-body magnetic resonance imaging at 0.05 Tesla" [1800W] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adm7168 .. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40335170


Not an expert but it seems acid is not specific enough. There are acidic organs like the stomach but also the vagina. I wonder if the nano robots would then attack stomach and vagina cells.

This said, I am pleasantly surprised that nano robots, a scifi idea, are actively researched and tested. As a child I watched a French TV scifi animation series which showed people and their vessel minified and injected into a human body. Now finally it seems this future has started? I hope it is a good start.


As I understand it stomach cells aren't really acid-resistant. The stomach creates mucus to keep the acid from touching the cells.


Article: ”A DNA Robotic Switch with Regulated Autonomous Display of Cytotoxic Ligand Nanopatterns” (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-024-01676-4


It relies on acid? Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori too, please.

In the long term I expect engineering to outperform evolution in the same way that mathematics allowed humans to establish such a practical lead that we're almost in a different class to animals. It'll be interesting to see how quickly and how lopsided the advantage is over cells if nanorobots take off.


Molecular organic biology _is_ already since the dawn of time the realization of nanobots through enzymes and various automata built in chemistry.

I think (to your point) what is interesting is adding new chemical nanobot-esque compounds that nature had not yet developed. For example that can coordinate with external focused energy.


evolution allowed this to happen, basically it’s evolution all the way down ;)




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