In a laboratory experiment, the nanoparticles induced the death of cancer cells.

Axar.az reports that Russian scientists have proposed a new kind of cancer treatment based on nanoparticles which induce more damage to cancer cells than conventional treatments and may even work on cells which are resistant to drugs.
The nanoparticles are made from cytochrome, an enzyme, and cardiolipin, a key part of a cell's inner mitochondrial membrane.

In a cell culture, researchers from Moscow State University, Northeastern University in Boston and the Russian Academy of Sciences demonstrated that the nanoparticles stimulate the death of cancer cells by acting on the cell membrane and/or mitochondrial membrane. They published their findings in the journal Pharmaceutical Research.

"We suggest that further research continues to work towards creating a fundamentally new type of cancer treatment, including the Cyt-CL complex."

"This complex exists in normal cells, where it is used to trigger apoptosis (cell death), regulated by the body. We also plan to develop means of directing the delivery of the treatment to cancer cells," Yury A. Vladimirov, one of the authors of the research paper, told RIA Novosti.