Moisturiser modified to tackle skin cancer

WHEN a disease runs skin deep, perhaps all that is needed is moisturiser supercharged with gene-regulation technology.

For skin conditions including melanoma, treatments that are applied directly to the skin are the ideal drug solution: they are easy to use and they affect only the area under which they are applied.

The problem is that our skin is such a successful barrier against toxins that finding substances that penetrate it is a huge challenge, says Amy Paller at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. So until now, clinics have used lasers or ultrasound to help deliver drugs deep into the skin.

Paller and her colleague Chad Mirkin, also at Northwestern, have found a way through the skin barrier. They coated tiny gold spheres with small interfering RNA (siRNA) - tiny pieces of nucleic acid that appear to penetrate the barrier and enter skin cells through an as-yet unspecified pathway. The siRNA is selected to target one of the genes responsible for making cancer cells grow quickly, called epidermal growth factor receptor.

Paller and Mirkin mixed the drug with shop-bought moisturiser and applied it to mouse skin. Not only did the nanoparticles penetrate the skin, but they also targeted the intended gene without causing toxicity or other side effects in the surrounding skin (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1118425109).

"Nanoparticles are an all-in-one solution," says Paller.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

Have your say

Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.

Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article

Subscribe now to comment.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/211b0b0b/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg215287250B60A0A0Emoisturiser0Emodified0Eto0Etackle0Eskin0Ecancer0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

phoebe prince jose reyes college football bowl schedule college football bowl schedule double mastectomy 2011 bowl schedule bcs games