Nanotech targets and kills cancerous tumors 奈米科技鎖定並殺死癌腫瘤

◎陳成良

Scientists have long known that heat is an effective weapon against cancerous tumors. The problem, though, has been how to heat the tumors to the point that it kills them without damaging surrounding tissue.

科學家早已知道熱度是對抗癌腫瘤的利器，然而，問題向來在於如何把腫瘤加熱到足以殺死它們、卻不會傷害周遭組織的程度。

Now researchers at MIT think they have the answer： nanotechnology.

如今麻省理工學院的研究人員認為他們找到了答案：奈米科技。

The school announced this week that the researchers have developed gold nanoparticles that can target tumors and heat them with minimal side effects to nearby healthy cells.

該校本週宣布，研究人員已開發出黃金奈米粒子，能夠鎖定腫瘤並加熱，而且對附近健康細胞只造成最輕微的副作用。

While the gold nanorods were used in the study to find and home in on tumors, they also might be able to diagnose cancer, according to the researchers.

雖然研究中利用黃金奈米棒來尋找並鎖定腫瘤，它們或許也能診斷癌症，據研究人員指出。

The researchers said that tumors in mice that received the nanorod treatment disappeared within 15 days. The cancer did not reoccur for the duration of the three-month study.

研究人員表示，接受這種奈米棒治療的老鼠體內腫瘤在15天內消失，癌症在整個3個月的研究期間未見復發。

Cancer researchers have long been trying to figure out a way to better attack cancer cells without harming healthy cells as well. That has been one of the major drawbacks of chemotheraphy and radiation therapy, which often have debilitating side effects because of the difficulty in targeting just the cancerous tissue.

癌症研究人員長期以來一直試圖找出能更有效攻擊癌細胞、同時不傷害健康細胞的方法。這一直是化療與放射線治療的主要缺點之一，這兩種療法因難以只鎖定癌組織，常常帶來令人衰弱的副作用。

新聞辭典

home in on：片語，鎖定、朝向；把…集中於。例句：The missile homed in on its target. （飛彈鎖定目標 。）

for the duration：片語，直到…結束；在整個…期間 。例句： The bus drivers refused to work for the duration of the summer. （公車司機拒絕在夏天工作。）

debilitating：形容詞，使人衰弱的；削弱力量的。