Abstract

Cancer is one of the main causes of death in Europe. An early stage detection and an effective treatment are keystones to reduce cancer mortality. Current clinical procedures fail to detect small amounts of tumoral biomarkers (molecules that appear in higher concentrations in patients with disease). For some kinds of cancer, tumors are detected at advanced stages when aggressive and conventional treatments are not effective. Moreover, existing cancer treatments like chemotherapy are not selective and destroy both healthy and unhealthy cells. Thus, the development of high-sensitive instruments able to detect cancer at a very initial stage and localized treatments that act on tumoral cells only would have an important impact to cure and reduce the effects of this disease in the society. MAGNAMED proposes a novel approach to improve the detection limits of cancer biomarkers and a remote actuation to selectively annihilate cancer cells in-vitro experiments. Both strategies are based on magnetic nanostructures, elements that look like magnetic coins smaller than one micron. On the one hand, these nanocoins, functionalized with the tumoral biomarker to be detected, can provide a high signal in magnetic-based sensors, which can detect small amounts of analyte. On the other hand, the nanocoins oscillate with a magnetic field. The oscillation of the nanostructures attached to the membrane of a cancer cell will produce its death. This remote action only affects cells loaded with nanostructures and keep safe the rest of the tissue.