A more effective and safer way to detect and kill cancer cells have been discovered by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Francisco: by changing the shapes of gold nanospheres into cylindrical gold nanorods, the team was able to detect malignant tumors hidden deeper under the skin (like breast cancer) and selectively destroy them with lasers only half as powerful as before - without harming the healthy cells.

(In photo: image of cancer cell illuminated by gold nanorods bound to anti-EFGR, Source: Georgia Tech)

The abovementioned method which allows for a safer, deeper penetrating noninvasive cancer treatment has been recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, volume 128.

"With the nanospheres we're using visible lasers, but most of the solid cancer is under the tissues and visible light doesn't go but a few millimeters deep. But by using the nanorods we can tune them to react to the infrared lasers, which can penetrate the tumor without being absorbed by the tissues," said Mostafa El-Sayed, director of the Laser Dyanamics Laboratory and Regents' professor of chemistry at Georgia Tech.

Read the complete Georgia Tech News Release.