Home > Press > Super graphene helps boost chemotherapy treatment: Replacing silver coating on catheters with graphene increases treatment effect
Elise Ramleth Østli and Ph.D. candidate Federico Mazzola of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) check their experiment. As part of her master's project at NTNU, Elise Ramleth Østli spent time in Stockholm, studying the tubes used with intravenous catheters. Back at NTNU, she contacted Justin Wells at the Department of Physics, asking if he was interested in continuing studies on these types of medical materials. CREDIT: Per Henning/NTNU |
Abstract:
Chemotherapy treatment usually involves the patient receiving medicine through an intravenous catheter. These catheters, as well as the the equipment attached to them, are treated with a silver coating which is antibacterial, preventing bacterial growth and unwanted infections during a treatment.
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Physics are now studying what happens when different drugs come in contact with this silver coating.
Silver breaks down chemotherapy drugs
"We wanted to find potential problem sources in the tubes used in intravenous catheters. An interaction between the coating and the drugs was one possibility. Chemotherapy drugs are active substances, so it isn't hard to imagine that the medicine could react with the silver," says Justin Wells, an associate professor of physics at NTNU.
Wells and his students used x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) to look at the surface chemistry of one of the most commonly used chemotherapy drugs, 5-Fluorouracil (5-Fu), and the interaction between it and the type of silver coating found in medical equipment.
Using an XPS instrument at the synchrotron lab MAX IV in Sweden, they found that the antibacterial silver coating actually breaks down the drugs. Not only does this reduce the effect of a chemotherapy treatment, but it also creates hydrogen fluoride, a gas that can be harmful both to the patients and to the medical equipment.
"Reactions between chemotherapy drugs and other substances that the drugs come in contact with have, as far as we know, never been studied like this before," Wells says. It has always been assumed that the drugs reach the body fully intact.
Magical material
The group continued their studies with the XPS instrument, now examining how the same chemotherapy drugs reacted with graphene.
"Graphene is a non-reactive substance, and is sometimes referred to as a magical material that can solve any problem. So we thought that it might be a good combination with the chemotherapy drugs," Wells explains.
And they were right-- the drugs did not react with the graphene.
Graphene has already been suggested as a coating for medical equipment, and according to researchers, it should be possible to create thin layers of graphene designed for this use.
"This research has produced valuable information about the interaction between chemotherapy drugs and other substances that the medicine is in contact with. We hope that our work will contribute to making cancer treatment more effective, and that we can continue our work in this area. We would like to study the reaction between chemotherapy drugs and other substances and coatings used on medical equipment," Wells concludes.
###
Reference: Graphene coatings for chemotherapy: avoiding silver-mediated degradation. Federico Mazzola, Thuat Trinh, Simon Cooil, Elise Ramleth Østli, Kristin Høydalsvik, Eirik Torbjørn Bakken Skjønsfjell, Signe Kjelstrup, Alexei Preobrajenski, Attilio A. Cafolla, D. Andrew Evans, Dag W. Breiby and Justin W.Wells. 2D Mater. 2 (2015) 025004. doi:10.1088/2053-1583/2/2/025004
####
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
Justin Wells
47-735-93428
Copyright © Norwegian University of Science and Technology
If you have a comment, please Contact us.Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Related News Press |
News and information
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Good as gold - improving infectious disease testing with gold nanoparticles April 5th, 2024
Cancer
New micromaterial releases nanoparticles that selectively destroy cancer cells April 5th, 2024
Graphene/ Graphite
NRL discovers two-dimensional waveguides February 16th, 2024
Discoveries
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
New micromaterial releases nanoparticles that selectively destroy cancer cells April 5th, 2024
Utilizing palladium for addressing contact issues of buried oxide thin film transistors April 5th, 2024
Materials/Metamaterials/Magnetoresistance
Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024
Focused ion beam technology: A single tool for a wide range of applications January 12th, 2024
Announcements
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers/Posters
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
Premium Products | ||
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||