Abstract:
Current chemotherapeutic treatment options rely on delivering high doses of toxic chemicals to a patient in the hopes that some of the drug will kill the cancer. This method of treatment leads to side effects ranging from hair loss to healthy cell mutation. To combat the potential for these side effects a method of delivery for therapeutics has been developed from polymer micelles housing the drug that specifically targets and binds to cancer cells. Not only can the cancer cells be targeted directly, thus reducing the detrimental side effects, but temporal control of therapeutic delivery can be achieved by a magnetically triggered mechanism. In the semi-crystalline core of the micelles, magnetic nanoparticles are housed with the therapeutic drug. Once an alternating current (ac) magnetic field is applied to the micelles, the magnetic particles heat, allowing the cores to melt, which allows the drug to diffuse from the cores of the micelles.
