On June 17th, 2012, researchers from the group of Professor Xiyun Yan at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences published their latest research results on cancer diagnosis in Nature Nanotechnology. This is another major breakthrough after the group’s discovery on the intrinsic enzyme-like activity of inorganic nanomaterials ( Nature Nanotechnology, 2007). In this work, by utilizing the newly found biological property of inorganic nanomaterials, Yan group biomimetically synthesized a new magnetoferritin nanoparticle in collaboration with Professor Yongxin Pan at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The new nanoparticle has an iron oxide core encapsulated in a ferritin protein shell. The protein shell binds specifically to tumour cells, while the inorganic core exhibits peroxidase activity that visualizes the tumours in the presence of chromogen substrates. They examined 474 clinical specimens from patients with nine types of cancer and verified that these nanoparticles can distinguish cancerous cells from normal cells with a sensitivity of 98% and specificity of 95%. Compared with traditional antibody-based immunohistochemistry, this new magnetoferritin nanoparticle-based method is more rapid (It only takes 1 hour, rather than 4 hours in immunohistochemistry) and simpler to implement since it achieves tumours targeting and visualization in one step, avoiding multi-step incubations with expensive and unstable antibodies, and repeated washing procedures of immunohistochemistry. This greatly shortens diagnostic time and reduces the cost, and thus has significant implications for cancer diagnosis.

This research results will provide new ideas, new reagents and new technologies for cancer diagnosis and treatment.