Tiny drones to target Cancer

Dr. Wilfred Ngwa, a medical physicist in radiation oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is working to apply drone technology to cancer treatment.

Ngwa and his colleagues have developed tiny drones designed to target and kill cancer cells that have spread in the body. The drones are implanted into the tumors carrying immunotherapy medicine and microscopic nanoparticles that can amplify the effect of radiation therapy on cancer cells locally.

“Once they are implanted, as is currently done in the clinic,” Ngwa said. “They can be programmed to release these microscopic nanoparticles and the immunotherapy medicine so that they can work together with the radiation to train your white blood cells to fight cancer more effectively.”

After the cancer cells begin to die, he said the immunotherapy medicine acts as a “homing beacon,” calling in the patient’s white blood cells, which are then trained to kill the cancer cells and able to patrol the rest of the body, fighting cancer cells that have spread. The “drones” are made of FDA-approved, biodegradable polymers. The medicine is loaded onto them, and they are programmed to trigger the release of the treatment on the desired schedule. Once they’ve been implanted into a patient and have released the therapy, they biodegrade.