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Gold Naotechnology Essay

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Gold nanoparticles in breast cancer treatment: antibodies and aptamers
Nasirli Ilkin
University of South Florida
PHA6146.002F17 Nanotechnology Abstract
Cancer has a major impact on societies world-wide. In 2011, an estimated 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the United States, and approximately 595,000 people died from the disease (DeSantis et al 2011). Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer for women in the United States (US). The biological usage of nanoparticles is a sharply increasing application of nanotechnology that is presenting new potential outcomes for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. In recent years, many research articles have shown opportunities for the use of gold nanoparticles …show more content…

However, many challenges in treating breast cancer patients remain, including reducing treatment-related adverse events, managing triple-negative breast cancer despite poor outcomes and the lack of a therapeutic target, and balancing treatment toxicity with quality of life in patients with metastatic cancer who have already received extensive therapy (Lee et al 2014). Researchers started to use nanotechnology to overcome these barriers in breast cancer treatment and diagnosis. There has been a growing interest in the use of AuNP in biomedical research due to a combination of unique properties, such nanoparticles show good biocompatibility as they are generally considered to be benign,1 possess a high surface area and are characterized by facile surface functionalization through self-assembly of thiolates on the gold surface via formation of the Au–S bond and it has been demonstrated that AuNP can be used as efficient drug delivery vehicles both in cancer diagnostics, e.g., intracellular imaging, and in cancer therapy (Stuchinskaya et al 2011). Recent discoveries reveal that specific sequences of nucleic acids, referred as aptamers, possess unique binding characteristics to their targets. The name

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