Joint Venture on Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Magnetic Hyperthermia and Indirect Radiation Therapy

NPL is one of the founders of a European project, launched last week, which aims to improve the knowledge of combined cancer therapies by pairing experienced scientists and young researchers from nanophysics, chemical science and medicine.

Radiotherapy is the pillar of modern cancer treatment, but it is not effective against all tumour cells and it can damage the adjacent tissue. A major challenge is to combine different strategies to maximise tumour cell damage but limit radiation exposure of the surrounding healthy tissue.

Magnetic hyperthermia is an approach that uses magnetic nanoparticles as local heat sources to kill malignant cancer cells. When exposed to alternating magnetic fields, these nanoparticles release heat, but only in the areas where they are concentrated. Due to their size, nanoparticles are easily transported around the body and can penetrate many physical and physiological barriers, enabling access to tumours.

However, magnetic hyperthermia is not yet broadly recognised by oncologists as a viable treatment due to a lack of standardisation in the calibration material and setup.

This joint venture, called Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Magnetic Hyperthermia and Indirect Radiation Therapy (RADIOMAG), will bring together more than 20 leading research groups from 12 European countries and the US to provide clinicians with the necessary input to trial a novel anti-cancer treatment combining magnetic hyperthermia and radiotherapy. NPL will be involved primarily with the standardisation and testing of these treatments and the dissemination of the results.

The promotion of magnetic hyperthermia alongside radiotherapy will result in a more efficient cancer therapy through better dose optimisation, confining cell damage to tumour regions only. It is expected that this project will result in a compendium of best practices for magnetic hyperthermia.