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Biomedical materials

Nanoscale radiosurgery

Nature Materials volume 9, pages 467–468 (2010)Cite this article

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Radionuclides encapsulated within carbohydrate-functionalized carbon nanotubes set new records for in vivo radiodosage, while demonstrating zero leakage of isotopes to high-affinity organs, such as the thyroid.

Stereotactic surgery replaces the less precise scalpel and human eye with an elaborate three-dimensional coordinate system that locates and targets small regions deep within body tissue. In 1968, the neurosurgeon Lars Leksell invented a new form of surgery using a 'gamma knife' — an array of highly focused beams of ionizing radiation (gamma rays) — to ablate brain tumours while not disturbing healthy tissue1. His invention was a specific arrangement of collimated cobalt-60 sources that could treat small regions of the body with minimal invasion. Today, stereotactic radiosurgery, as it is called, is an effective treatment for a variety of human cancers.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Whole-body in vivo imaging at 7 days after intravenous administration.

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  1. Michael S. Strano is in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. strano@mit.edu,

    Michael S. Strano

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  1. Michael S. Strano
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Strano, M. Nanoscale radiosurgery. Nature Mater 9, 467–468 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2776

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2776

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