By Georgia Barrington-Smith & Dr Rebecca Duncan
Cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of death worldwide, claiming the lives of millions of people each year. One of the first-line treatments of cancer is chemotherapy: powerful drugs that attack cancer cells and prevent their spread.
Historically, the main drawback of chemotherapy drugs has been their non-specific nature, meaning they attack both cancer cells and healthy cells indiscriminately. As a result, these drugs can have many adverse side-effects impacting a patient’s quality of life. To negate these effects, new chemotherapy pharmaceuticals are under development that use drug carriers called nanoparticles.
Precise delivery of chemotherapy drugs
Nanoparticles act like special couriers that carry necessary chemotherapy drugs around the body delivering them directly to the site of the tumour without stopping at healthy tissue.
Several types of nanoparticles have been explored for cancer treatments including polymeric micelles (PMs). Current work in this area is looking at developing PMs that can respond to environmental changes inside the cells, such as pH level. Once at the site of the tumour, which is often more acidic than healthy cells, the PMs sense the pH change. This triggers them to disassemble and release the chemotherapy drugs, effectively killing the cancer cells from the inside out. As well as being useful drug carry cases, PMs have a range of other benefits including improved solubility, prolonged circulation, and reduced toxicity.
preparing polymeric micelles for use in her research
Exploring the properties of nanoparticles
Cintya and her collaborators observed the PM disassembly process using dynamic light scattering techniques at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron. By performing small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments using the SAXS/WAXS beamline, the team showed that the PMs remained intact in non-acidic conditions and completely disassembled in acidic environments. Their experiments also revealed that small changes to PM chemical structure had significant impacts on their size and shape. This is important because size, shape, and surface features of PMs can drastically alter how they behave in biological systems.
As more nanoparticles enter clinical use, it is imperative that we understand how their structure influences their properties. Cintya’s research added valuable insights into how the pH-responsive behaviour and shape of PMs can be tuned, based on subtle changes in their chemical structure. These outcomes will greatly aid researchers in designing the next generation of life-saving cancer treatments.
Cintya’s research journey with AINSE and ANSTO
Cintya recalls her PGRA experience as “such an amazing opportunity” that she was incredibly “grateful for the support” offered by AINSE. Having access to ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron meant she was able to gather “valuable data” for her thesis and be a part of a “supportive ANSTO community”. She recalls how “invaluable the beamline scientists” were, making the experience incredibly rewarding.
We at AINSE are proud to spotlight Cintya for her ground-breaking work!
She has made an important contribution by using nuclear science and technology to improve cancer treatments.
Cintya has left the world of research to pursue a career in science communication at Scientell, helping others share their amazing science with the world.
Congratulations Cintya!
Keep up to date with our regular content and monthly research spotlights, including research from Caleb Stamper later this month, who is working on ‘improving energy materials by understanding heat flow on the atomic scale’.