The researchers used a human cervical cancer cell line called HeLa to test the efficiency of gene delivery using the functionalized nanodiamonds. Glowing green cells confirmed the delivery and insertion into the cells of a "Green Fluorecent Protein (GFP)"-encoding DNA sequence. This served as a demonstrative model of how specific disease-fighting DNA strands could be delivered to cells. As a platform, the nanodiamond system can carry a broad array of DNA strands.

Regarding toxicity measurements, cellular viability assays showed that low doses of the toxic high-molecular PEI resulted in significant cell death, while doses of nanodiamond-PEI800 that were three times higher than that of the high-molecular weight PEI revealed a highly biocompatible complex.

Ho and his research team originally demonstrated the application of nanodiamonds for chemotherapeutic delivery and subsequently discovered that the nanodiamonds also are extremely effective at delivering therapeutic proteins. Their work further has shown that nanodiamonds can sustain delivery while enhancing their specificity as well.

Having demonstrated the safety of nanodiamonds and their applicability toward a variety of biological uses, Ho's team is pursuing aggressively the steps necessary to push them towards clinical relevance. Current studies are boosting the targeting capabilities of the nanodiamonds while also evaluating their pre-clinical efficiency.

"There's a long road ahead before the technology is ready for clinical use," Ho said, "but we are very pleased with the exciting properties and potential of the nanodiamond platform."

Source: Northwestern University