Nanoparticles deliver ‘suicide gene’ therapy to pediatric brain tumors growing in mice

Date posted
Funding Agency
(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have demonstrated that a type of biodegradable, lab-engineered nanoparticle they fashioned can successfully deliver a "suicide gene" to pediatric brain tumor cells implanted in the brains of mice. The researchers found that a combination of the suicide gene and ganciclovir delivered by intraperitoneal injection to mice killed more than 65% of two types of pediatric brain tumor cells.