Nano Engineering of Artificial Granulocytes for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapeutics

The study of nanomedicine research, to date, has been concentrating on developing nanovectors for medical imaging, drug/gene delivery, and cell targeting, particularly in cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. Although quite successful in some areas, critical challenges remain, especially in the clinical settings. Some of the critical issues include delivery inefficiency, targeting non-specificity, and low uptake of theranostic-payloads by the cancerous lesions upon intravenous injection. Therefore, an alternative approach may be possible, via nanotechnology, by simulating some of the immune cells. In this Technical Note, we propose using specifically designed nanoparticles to simulate neutrophils that are capable of effective cancer cells targeting and killing without the complications in drug loading, biomarker conjugation, and assembly of chemical and physical therapeutic means. The simulated artificial cells mimic neutrophils, namely, granulocytes, according to their biological characteristics, for instance, positively-charged cell surfaces and the ability to release perferin upon binding onto the cancer cells leading to cytolysis. This Technical Note is intended to deliver a new concept in artificially-engineered granulocytes for cancer diagnosis and therapeutics.