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Efficient drug delivery is key to fighting illness. Instead of flooding the body with medicine so that some of it will make it to the afflicted region, the goal is to deliver a cancer drug directly to the tumor. Mariana Medina-Sánchez and colleagues from the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Germany have come up with a novel approach to fighting gynecological cancers: have sperm cells directly deliver the drugs. This approach specifically targets diseases such as gynecological cancer, endometriosis, and pelvic inflammatory diseases.
The active ingredient in the medication is readily taken up by the sperm, so the technical challenge was to figure out how to get the sperm to deliver the medicine where it was needed. The researchers developed tiny iron harnesses that they hitch the sperm to, and they use magnetic fields to direct the sperm where to swim.
The harness also has a quick release mechanism. When the device hits a surface, the force of the collision causes the harness to release its grip on the sperm which then swim away freely. The idea is that this happens when the sperm reaches the tumor, where it can then burrow into the tissue and into the cancer cells themselves.
Details of the work can be found in their arxiv paper.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:59PM (2 children)
Damn - I'm willing to volunteer to implant some sperm for the sake of a woman's health. Are there no other perverts here, able and willing to help out a damsel in distress? Come on guys, you're embarrassing me!!
On a half serious note, I wonder if some sperm are more suitable in some cases. In nature, a female tends to reject "unfamiliar" sperm, as invasive, possibly hostile/parasitic. In a monogamous relationship, the sperm becomes more "familiar" over time, and the women becomes more receptive to pregnancy. So, uhhh, how "familiar" do the armored sperm have to become, to be effective? Maybe there are groups of DNA markers that would be more "familiar" to the woman involved? Or, is it all left to luck and chance? Magnetic nudging is all well and good, but there is chemistry to consider as well.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:07PM
Yup, I think you hit the nail on the head [cmu.edu] with this one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @11:02PM
Yeah. I approached this from the concerned partner angle:
Honey, isn't it time for your medicine?
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