MIT researchers have custom designed nanoparticles that can deliver the cancer drug cisplatin specifically to prostate cancer cells. In this image, the yellow areas indicate prostate cancer cells that have taken up nanoparticles encapsulated with a platinum(IV) prodrug, which delivers a lethal dose of cisplatin -- a drug commonly used to treat several types of cancer.

The new research was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week. Authors of the paper are Shanta Dhar, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry; MIT affiliate Frank X. Gu; Institute Professor Robert Langer; Omid Farokhzad, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School; and Stephen Lippard, the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry. Photo / Shanta Dar

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 29, 2008 (download PDF).