New research co-led by Indiana University School of Medicine scientists presents a significant step toward more precise and effective cancer treatments by using a breakthrough method to deliver therapies directly to cancer cells. The study was recently published in ACS Nano.

“One of the biggest challenges in cancer treatment is that many drugs not only attack cancer cells but also harm healthy cells throughout the body,” said Ngoc Tung Tran, Ph.D., the study’s co-lead author and an assistant professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology at the IU School of Medicine. “This can lead to serious side effects and limit how well the treatment works. Our goal is to develop a smarter way to deliver cancer therapy directly to cancer cells while avoiding normal tissues.”

In the study, researchers focused on multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that mainly grows in plasma cells found in the bone marrow. Using mouse models, they carried therapeutic molecules into cells by using a delivery system of tiny, fat-based particles called lipid nanoparticles, or LNPs.