Sagar: A team of scientists from Dr Hari Singh Gour Vishwavidyalaya here in Madhya Pradesh and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai Maharashtra claimed to have achieved a breakthrough in the detection of sick cells in deadly and the treatment using carbon nanoparticles.
The technology developed by them can easily differentiate between healthy and sick cells, thereby paving the way for targeted therapy in diseases like cancer in the human body.
The research has been published in the current issue of Nanoscale, a scientific journal by the Royal Society of Chemistry, in London United Kingdom.
Effective In Identifying Diseases Of Body
Assistant Professor at the Microbiology Department of Sagar University, Dr Yogesh Bhargava said the team prepared carbon nanoparticles (one billionth part of a meter) in the laboratory under the research and these particles have a speciality of entering the body and identify healthy and sick cells. The unique feature about them is that they do not harm healthy cells and provide chemical functional groups in the form of medications to the cells, which will work to repair the sick cells,” he said.
Carbon Groups Work Like Hooks
Dr Bhargava further said that Carbon has many functional groups which work like hooks and if any medicine is applied to these hooks, then they can reach the cells easily.
“The medicines that are given now are reaching the main organs of the whole body. Because of this, there are many side effects, and very expensive medicines are being used. But, through carbon nanoparticles, we can move towards targeted drug delivery,” he said.
Crucial Research Using Carbon Dot Particles
Dr Bhargava said that the research was the result of many years of hard work and collaboration, which resulted in the treatment using nanoparticles from carbon.
“The field of nanoparticles is not new and to understand this, we can divide the Mendeleev table into two parts. One is carbon and the other is non-carbon. A lot of work has been done on non-carbon. But work on the carbon field has just begun. Carbon dots are the newest member of nanoparticles,” he said.
“We are researching this new member with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Through this, we are finding out that the cancer epidemic is that there are cancer cells and normal cells in our body, but we are unable to differentiate between them. When the cells of our body are causing harm to the body, then how can we detect them? Therefore, we need such chemicals that can detect cancer cells. So we are making chemicals using nanoparticles.”
Harmful Radioactive Tests For Body
Dr Bhargava said, “The tests related to radioactivity can detect the signal of a single radioactive atom among thousands of crores of atoms. But this can also cause cancer. In these situations, carbon nanoparticles, which are also called carbon dots or carbon quantum dots, can only detect diseased cells.”
He said this was a completely new field of research, which would bring revolution in the future. “At present, a lot of research is going on in this. It has so many dimensions that your thoughts may be limited, but this field is unlimited,” he said.
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