New Haifa lab studies laser beams to treat cancer

Gold nanoparticles and laser beams will be researched as a new non-invasive treatment for cancer at a Technion-Israel Institute for Technology lab financed with €2 million from the European Union and a large previous donation from philanthropist Lorry Lokey of San Francisco. The potential treatment is meant to have minimal side effects and low toxicity to healthy cells near the tumor.

The Technion's faculty of biomedicine in Haifa opened the lab last week. Thanks to Lokey's $30m. donation in 2006, the Technion established the Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering, headed by Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Aaron Ciechanover. This multidisciplinary lab includes researchers from physics, optics, biology, biomedicine and nanotechnology. This innovative treatment is arousing great interest here and around the world, and now the research has been awarded two significant grants - €2m. from the EU and $1m. from the Israel Science Foundation. Dr. Dvir Yelin from the biomedicine faculty is developing technology that makes it possible to wipe out cancer cells in a very selective, non-toxic manner. Gold nanoparticles with very low toxicity reach the tumor.
Lire l'intégralité de l'article » (article de Judy Siegel-Itzkovich @ The Jerusalem Post)