National Cancer Institute launches $144 million nanotechnology research program

• In the fight against cancer, some scientists are thinking small.
• The National Cancer Institute launches a five-year, $144 million project today to investigate using nanotechnology, the science of building devices on the atomic level, to fight cancer.
• Researchers are developing molecule-size devices measured in nanometers, a unit that's one-billionth of a meter and about 80,000 times thinner than a human hair.
• Some experts urge caution, noting that scientists know relatively little about the technology's safety.
• A growing number of researchers are investigating potential health hazards or environmental damage.
• But researchers also have high hopes, envisioning nanodevices that detect tiny cancers, kill them and send damage reports to doctors.
• · Nanoparticles made of magnetic rust that, when injected, will help MRI exams better detect prostate cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes.
• · Gold "nanoshells," developed by Rice University researchers, which gather around tumors and heat up when hit with near-infrared light, killing cancer cells without harming healthy ones.
• Nanospectra Biosciences hopes to begin human trials in about a year.
• James Baker, director of the Center for Biological Nanotechnology at the University of Michigan, says drugs delivered this way are 100 times more potent than standard therapies.
• Tests in mice have been encouraging, and Baker hopes to begin human tests within a couple of years.
• Recent studies, though, suggest that nanoproducts aren't always benign.
• Another researcher found that nanoproducts damaged the brains of bass.
• And Ward Casscells, vice president for biotechnology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, notes that many technologies fail to live up to expectations and that there's a danger in overhyping nanoscience.