{"id":71820,"date":"2017-08-09T12:13:24","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T19:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/researchers-accidentally-discover-that-iron-nanoparticles-can-help-destroy-cancer-cells"},"modified":"2017-08-09T12:13:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T19:13:24","slug":"researchers-accidentally-discover-that-iron-nanoparticles-can-help-destroy-cancer-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/researchers-accidentally-discover-that-iron-nanoparticles-can-help-destroy-cancer-cells","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Accidentally Discover That Iron Nanoparticles Can Help Destroy Cancer Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-accidentally-discover-that-iron-nanoparticles-can-help-destroy-cancer-cells.jpeg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Stanford researchers accidentally discovered that iron nanoparticles invented for anemia treatment have another use: triggering the immune system\u2019s ability to destroy tumor cells. Iron <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nanoparticles\/\" rel=\"tag\" target=\"_blank\">nanoparticles<\/a> can activate the immune system to attack <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cancer+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" target=\"_blank\">cancer cells<\/a>, according to a study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>The nanoparticles, which are commercially available as the injectable iron supplement ferumoxytol, are approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/iron+deficiency+anemia\/\" rel=\"tag\" target=\"_blank\">iron deficiency anemia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The mouse study found that ferumoxytol prompts immune cells called tumor-associated macrophages to destroy cancer cells, suggesting that the nanoparticles could complement existing cancer treatments. The discovery, described in a paper published online Sept. 26 in <i>Nature Nanotechnology<\/i>, was made by accident while testing whether the nanoparticles could serve as Trojan horses by sneaking chemotherapy into tumors in mice.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/explorist.futurism.com\/researchers-accidentally-discover-that-iron-nanoparticles-can-help-destroy-cancer-cells\/\">https:\/\/explorist.futurism.com\/researchers-accidentally-disc...cer-cells\/<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stanford researchers accidentally discovered that iron nanoparticles invented for anemia treatment have another use: triggering the immune system\u2019s ability to destroy tumor cells. Iron nanoparticles can activate the immune system to attack cancer cells, according to a study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The nanoparticles, which are commercially available as [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}