The remarkable advances in nanotechnology have allowed the rational synthesis of unique nanostructured materials for biomedicine. Engineered gold nanoparticles have emerged as an important class of materials with unique physical and biological properties. Coupled with their nanoscale dimensions, high surface area, and unique electronic, optical and magnetic properties, the chemistry on the surface are carefully tailored for the therapeutic and diagnostic needs of such nano-systems. The use of tailor-made functionalized nanomaterials have proved to be an excellent approach in biological detection and disease treatment as well as in overcoming toxicity issues and enhancing targeting potentials of such materials. The gold-mediated molecular recognition is also extensively exploited for better understanding of the dynamic cellular events as well as in the mechanism of uptake and release of potential therapeutic drugs, DNA, RNA, peptides and proteins.We developed a facile synthetic protocol that can effectively integrate gold nanoparticle (AuNP) as a carrier and disulfiram (DSF) as a repurposed anti-cancer drug into one nano-entity (AuNP-DSF) through well-designed surface coating and conjugation techniques. Most importantly, the in vivo study on mouse model shows this finely tailored drug-gold nano-conjugate can cross blood-brain barrier and remarkably inhibit the brain tumor growth, which is evidenced by the extensively-elongated life-span by 2 to 3 times compared to the un-treated control group. Our data indicate that engineered gold nanoparticle provide a viable vehicle to deliver drug molecules to brain tumor by effectively transpassing blood-brain barrier. This engineered gold nanoparticle shows huge therapeutic potential for brain cancer treatment and other biomedicine applications.

Crossing blood-brain barrier: Engineer gold nanoparticles for drug delivery in brain tumor treatment

248th National Meeting (2014)

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