Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. It can be described as an abnormal cell growth—forming lumps or masses—that can possibly spread to other organs of the body, and as these tumors grow, they interfere with normal body functions. 

Over the years, treatments have been developed to fight this fatal disease. Patients may get through a month, sometimes yearlong treatment, but the main problem we have is the remission or the recurrence of cancer cells.

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It is because the cancer stem cells are tough to go up against using only typical cancer drugs, Science Daily reported. Anti-cancer drugs can only reduce tumors, but it cannot eradicate cancer stem cells. 

This being said, it can be assumed that there is no cure for cancer. However, we are already living in a world where technology and medicine go hand in hand to develop a drug for the incurable diseases.

Yes, there's hope! True to that is the new Nanoparticle Technology, which can be simply called "Nanoparticles."

Xiaioming He of American Chemical Society and his co-workers have grown cancer cells, causing human breast tumors, in mice. They packed doxorubicin, an anti-cancer drug, into nanoparticles covered with chitosan and injected it to the test subjects. 

The result? It destroyed the tumors, killed the cancer stem cells and the best part is no side effects can be seen on the mice. 

More so, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis found out that therapy based on nanoparticle can be a treatment for multiple myeloma in lab rats. This disease is also known as cancer in the bone marrow immune cells.

Meanwhile, researchers at University of Buffalo developed this new biotech nanoparticles that not only targets cancer cells, but can also develop a vaccine that may treat human immunodeficiency virus or HIV. This is a promising discovery but the process was hard, according to Dr. Jonathan F. Lovell.

Lovell, who is the Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, said that it's only effective in a controlled surrounding or environment. According to School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences' report, they are still in the process of making it work inside a body. 

The nanotechnology has never been tested with humans and researchers said it could be years away, Furity has learned. However, they are keen to work on this new technology and are positive about what it can do to the future of medicine. 

TagsCancer, Tumor, nanotechnology, Science, cure