UTEP Professor Researching Using Microscopic Solar Cells To Target Cancer, Reduce Chemo Illness

A walk by a garden of solar panels sparked an idea that could revolutionize the way cancer patients receive chemotherapy and greatly reduce the side effects associated with the treatment.

With traditional chemotherapy treatment, the drug is delivered intravenously, traveling through the bloodstream where it comes in contact with many organs on its way to its cancer target.

“Current strategies with chemo drugs go everywhere,” UTEP assistant professor Dr. Tao Xu said. “It kills the tumor cells and at the same time kills normal tissues. So, that’s a lot of side effects.”

Xu has found a new way to deliver the chemotherapy drugs directly to the tumor that has proven successful in the initial testing stage.

The concept is for energy from a laser light to activate the chemotherapy drug on microscopic solar cells, releasing a low dose of the drug directly to the tumor. The solar cells are 1/1,000th smaller than a millimeter.

Xu said that the laser light can penetrate up to 10 centimeters and initially sees the method being used to treat tumors that are close to the skin before the method is adapted to be used on tumors elsewhere in the body. The laser light activation of the drugs would be non-invasive.

Xu is hopeful that the method could reduce chemotherapy side effects by 80 to 90 percent.

Raul Arellano, who has been battling bone marrow cancer for three years, said a new treatment that would nearly eliminate chemo side effects would be a “miracle.”

“I can’t walk like I used to because I feel off balance,” Arellano, 55, said of one of the side effects of a chemo drug he is currently on. He lost some of his hair with a previous chemo drug, but he is thankful he did not get mouth sores or lose his appetite like other patients.

Xu said the next stage in research is to test the hypothesis on animals within the next few months.

He said using the microscopic cells could eventually be used for other medical applications, such as bone regeneration, which uses electrical stimulation to get bone cells to grow faster.

Arellano’s cancer isn’t curable, but it is treatable and he will have to be on chemotherapy drugs the rest of his life. He said it is good that people such as Xu are working on making chemotherapy side effects less of an issue for cancer patients.

“I guess there’s a price for everything if you want to live longer,” Arellano said of chemotherapy side effects. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m retiring now, to try and at least enjoy my life a little. It’d be great if they can work on something that can have less side effects.”

Notes About The Project – The project currently uses silicon solar cells. Dr. Tao Xu said they are working on making biodegradable solar cells. – Four UTEP students are helping conduct the research. – UTEP?s Regenerative Bioengineering and Biomodeling Laboratory, which includes this project, is funded by the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation.