MIT News: Targeting tumors using tiny gold particles Gold nanorods could detect, treat cancer

Anne Trafton, News Office
May 4, 2009

It has long been known that heat is an effective weapon against tumor cells. However, it's difficult to heat patients' tumors without damaging nearby tissues.

Now, MIT researchers have developed tiny gold particles that can home in on tumors, and then, by absorbing energy from near-infrared light and emitting it as heat, destroy tumors with minimal side effects.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/gold-cancer-0504.html

MIT researchers developed these gold nanorods that absorb energy from near-infrared light and emit it as heat, destroying cancer cells. Photo / Sangeeta Bhatia Laboratory; MIT

Analysis knocks down theory on origin of cell structure

Genomic tools show cilia probably did not originate as separate organism
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/origin-of-cells-0422.html

David Chandler, MIT News Office

"It's a big advance," he says. It provides "evidence for a very long history of something that was there before" the origin of the kind of cells that made all advanced life possible. If this analysis is confirmed, he says, "understanding the cilia is now going to become one of the great projects" for biologists to pursue.