University of Manchester‘s Michael Lisanti, Aravind Vijayaraghavan and Federica Sotgia have shown that graphene oxide acts as an anti-cancer agent that selectively targets cancer stem cells. The researchers believe that this could lead to tumor shrinkage and preventing the spread and recurrence of cancer when combined with existing treatments.
The team tested a variety of graphene oxide formulations against breast, pancreatic, lung, brain, ovarian and prostate cancer. The flakes inhibited tumor sphere formation in all six types. This suggests that graphene oxide can be effective across a large number of different cancers, blocking processes which take place at the surface of the cells.
According to Sotgia: “These findings show that graphene oxide could possibly be applied as a lavage or rinse during surgery to clear CSCs or as a drug targeted at CSCs. Our results also show that graphene oxide is not toxic to healthy cells, which suggests that this treatment is likely to have fewer side effects if used as an anti cancer therapy.”
Wearable Tech + Digital Health NYC 2015 – June 30 @ New York Academy of Sciences