2014: Silicon nanoparticles for bioimaging, ultrasonic therapy and suppression of hazardous viruses

Researchers from the Faculty of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University together with their colleagues from Russia and Germany, tested a new approach — combination of the therapy and diagnostics with the use of nanoparticles as active agents � «nano-teranostics», which significantly raises the the efficacy of discovering and healing the cancer.

Investigations, which were carried out by Dr. L.A. Osminkina and Prof. V. Yu. Timoshenko together with stuff members, Ph.D. and graduate Students of the Faculty of Physics of MSU, in collaboration with researchers of the Institute of theoretical and experimental biophysics of RAS, Ivanovskii Institute of virology of RAS, Institute of immunology of FMBA and Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technologies (Jena, Germany), have developed new methods of preparation of biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles on the basis of silicon and revealed new possibilities of their applications for luminescent bioimaging of cancer simultaneously combined with sonodynamic therapy as well as for suppression of viral infections induced by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The revealed possibilities of simultaneous diagnosis and therapy by using the same biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles have established the background of as called nano-theranostics of cancer, which seems to be a promising approach in the modern medicine. The discovered property of silicon nanoparticles to be efficient scavengers for HIV and RSV virions opens prospects of the development of new antiviral drugs.

The results of this study have been published in the following papers: L. A Osminkina, V. A. Sivakov, G.A. Mysov, V.A. Georgobiani, U.�. Natashina, F. Talkenberg, V. V. Solovyev, A.A. Kudryavtsev, V.Yu. Timoshenko. Nanoparticles prepared from porous silicon nanowires for bio-imaging and sonodynamic therapy. Nanoscale Research Letters, 4, 463 (2014); L.A. Osminkina, V.Yu Timoshenko, I.P. Shilovsky, G.V. Kornilaeva, S.N. Shevchenko, M.B.Gongalsky, K.P. Tamarov, S.S. Abramchuk, V.N. Nikiforov, M.R. Khaitov, E.V. Karamov. Porous silicon nanoparticles as scavengers of hazardous viruses. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 16:2430 (2014).