Chemotherapy, the most common treatment for many forms of cancer, usually results in deleterious side effects. In addition, most of cancer stem cells (CSCs) initiating tumor growth are chemoresistant and escape the treatment, accounting for failure in treating metastatic cancer¹. During standard chemotherapy the drugs are readily uptaken by tumor cells. However, they are quickly pumped out by the P-glycoprotein, which is overexpressed in cancer cells.
Chemotherapeutic drugs conjugated with ND are not recognized by P-glycoprotein and evade the efflux. The intracellular concentration of the drug increases following sustained release from the carrier, inducing apoptosis and eradicating the tumor ². Thus, ND carriers significantly enhance the activity of chemotherapeutic drugs, while reducing or preventing their harmful side effects.
Doxorubicin (Dox), a standard treatment for cancer, was conjugated with ND and tested on mice cancer models ³. The authors reported that

• ND-Dox complex did not induce chemoresistance.
• A nearly 4-fold increase in tumor apoptosis was observed in mice treated with ND-Dox compared to the uncoupled drug.
• Elimination or significant reduction in deleterious side effects.

Chemical grafting of a tumor marker to the nanodiamond drug complex enables localization of the drug release in the tumor highly increasing in the effectiveness of cancer treatment.