In The Uncanny X-Men, Magneto, supervillain and CEO of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, wants to destroy humanity – and in the first X-Men movie, aims at forcibly mutating all human beings so that normals no longer exist to discriminate against mutants.
It turns out that Magneto really should have studied oncology, because if he had, he might have learned that magnetism could be an ultimate weapon against cancer. And then, instead of waging war on humanity, all nations would bow before him, the trillionaire controlling the medical establishment (that is, a different sort of supervillain).
That’s probably not what a team of researchers from Brazil and Portugal were thinking when they harnessed magnetic nanomaterials to find a way to stop bone cancer and heal the body in its wake, but it still holds.
Ângela Andrade, corresponding author of the Magnetic Medicine paper “Magnetic core-shell nanocomposites with bioactive glass coatings for hyperthermia-assisted bone cancer therapy,” explains how magnetic bioactive nanocomposites offer so much promise in defeating bone cancer. They simultaneously eliminate tumors through magnetic hyperthermia – essentially, burning cancer cells from the inside – while supporting new bone growth. Using this method allows “high magnetization of the nanocomposite and a strong bioactivity in the same material, which has been a long-standing challenge in this field.”
How does the process work? Andrade and her team synthesized and coated iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles with bioactive glass. During exposure to simulated bodily fluids, these magnetic bioactive nanocomposites quickly formed a group of phosphate minerals called apatites which are similar to the nonorganic material in bone, allowing them easy integration into bone.
“Among the tested formulations,” says Dr. Andrade, from the Department of Chemistry at the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP) in Brazil, “the one with a higher calcium content demonstrated the fastest mineralization rate and the strongest magnetic response, making it an ideal candidate for biomedical applications.”
Because the bioactive nanocomposites are magnetic, oncologists can employ magnetic hyperthermia – that is, the application of an alternating magnetic field to heat the particles inside cancer cells and destroy them. Because the nanoparticles don’t enter healthy cells, those cells remain unharmed. Then, thanks to their bioactive glass coating, the particles help regenerate tissue. In the fight against bone cancer, they’re not simply search-and-destroy, but search, destroy, and repair.
“This study provides new insights into how surface chemistry and structure influence the performance of magnetic biomaterials,” Andrade added. “The findings open new perspectives on the development of increasingly advanced multifunctional materials that are both safe and effective for clinical use.”
While bone cancer is relatively rare – about 0.4% of all cancer deaths and 0.2% of all new cancer cases in the US in 2025 – it’s devastating, causing difficulty in moving limbs, bone fractures, and death within five years in 31.5% of cases.
As New Atlas has previously reported, numerous researchers have deployed magnetism to combat cancer, as with extremely sensitive magnetic nanosensors for detecting cancer biomarkers, and magnetic nanoparticles or even MRI-steerable magnetic seeds that, as with Andrade’s bioactive nanocomposites, can invade cancer cells and heat them to death.
However, those methods did not promote simultaneous healing, offering indisputably superior value for patients via a single, minimally invasive procedure. If integrating bioactivity with magnetic performance continues its successful development, it may be a significant new step in creating smart nanomaterials for oncology and medical regeneration.
Source: KeAi Publishing via EurekAlert
