Treat cervical cancer with ... cow sperm

The cow sperm will carry medicine to treat, wear iron armor, become a suicide fighter straight into the tumor.

An article recently published in ACS Nano magazine by German authors said they have successfully designed a tool to deliver cancer drugs to the reproductive tract of women. These are cow sperm that are combined with a plastic structure and coated with iron armor with 3D printing technology.

Taking advantage of sperm's ability to find and penetrate cells, scientists have turned them into suicide fighters in a "targeted" cancer treatment - (photo: LIVE SCIENCE).

In fact, this iron armor is mainly used to help scientists control the path of "knights" by magnetic fields, enabling them to find and destroy cancer cells accurately. Many people liken this tool to a sale but in fact they are sperm that live and perform the task primarily by their natural swimming ability.

In an interview with Live Science, Mariana Medina-Sánchez, head of Micro Engineering and Biomedical Nano, of the Nano Research Institute in Dresden (Germany), one of the authors said: "Sperm has "The natural ability unites with egg cells. It can do the same thing with cancer cells and release drugs inside these cells."

The release of drugs inside cancer cells makes treatment an extremely effective "targeted approach " . "Targeting " is a way of calling cancer treatments in which healthy cells are maximized, helping to increase the chances of survival and recovery for patients.

In this study, the cow's sperm will carry the drug to treat cervical cancer doxorubicin hydrochloride in the head, because the head structure of the sperm helps the drug to be well protected from the surrounding environment. Cow sperm is also completely immune to this drug so it stays healthy and swims to its destination.

The work began a few years ago and made significant improvements to better promote the natural ability of cow sperm, instead of trying to turn it into a robot. The team said they were about to make the first animal tests and hopefully soon experiment with humans.