The drugs that treat cancer are very toxic to humans, meaning that when medicine is injected to target a tumor's cancer cells, it could theoretically endanger healthy tissues and organs.
That's where nanorobots come in.
The technological breakthrough comes from researchers at McGill University, Université de Montréal and Polytechnique Montréal, who have figured out how to make nanorobots swim through the blood stream from where they were injected and directly target the part of the body that needs the medicine, Science News Journal reports. The nanorobots can hold over 100 million self-propelled bacteria, which in turn carry vital drugs for treatment.
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Nanorobots specifically work by entering a tumor and detecting "hypoxic zones," or regions that have been depleted of oxygen. The nanorobots then treat them with medicine; even radiotherapy hadn't been able to penetrate hypoxic zones in the past.
"Chemotherapy is a toxic form of therapy for the human body," Science News Journal reports. "As a result of the research, the side effects could be eliminated while the therapeutic effectiveness is increased by using nanorobots to directly transport the drugs to the targeted area."
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