Bangalore: Rao Papineni, chief scientist and senior principal investigator in medical applications of nanotechnology at Carestream Health, Inc USA received patent on a path-breaking innovation in the field of cancer, reports The Hindu.

Rao, along with his colleague Alan Pollack, chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Miami came up with a system in which a nano-particle carries the payload of anti-cancer drug and releases it only in the cancerous cell and this way the cells lying around are protected.

“This patent will potentially change the way radiation is administered. It will improve localisation and monitoring of tumour and will help in highly targeted delivery of drugs to kill cancer cells,” Rao said.

“In rough terms, nano-particles are like payload delivery vehicles that can enhance damage to cancer tissues and simultaneously reduce the toxicity of normal and healthy tissues during radiation treatment.”

“The title of the patent is ‘High Capacity Non-Viral Vectors.’ The non-viral vectors are nano-particles. The nano-particles will allow the drug particle to target the diseased site with pinpoint precision. The nano-particles will allow the drug to be released inside the diseased cell. They will enhance the function of the drug. Our nano-particles will carry the drug precisely with minimal collateral damage to healthy tissue,” Dr. Papineni said.