A team of scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and University of Texas at Dallas are designing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and related nanostructures for the targeted thermal ablation of cancer tissue. CNTs absorb external near-infrared (NIR) light and convert it to heat, which kills tumor cells that have bound to the nanoparticles. A question in this approach is whether cells that internalize targeted CNTs are more easily killed than cells in which the targeted CNTs remain on the cell surface.

http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/lab/45276