Diamond cancer development

A research team at Northwestern University in the US has developed a promising material that could be used to deliver chemotherapy drugs locally to sites where cancerous tumours have been surgically removed.

The flexible microfilm, which resembles a piece of cling film and can be customised easily into different shapes, has the potential to transform conventional treatment strategies and reduce patients’ unnecessary exposure to toxic drugs.

To make the specialised film, Dean Ho, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, embedded millions of tiny drug-carrying nanodiamonds in the FDA-approved polymer parylene.

Currently used as a coating for implants, the biostable parylene is a flexible and versatile material. A substantial amount of drug can be loaded onto clusters of nanodiamonds, which have a high surface area. The nanodiamonds are then put between extremely thin films of parylene, resulting in a material that is minimally invasive.