6/6/13 Achieving a New Controllable Male Contraception by the Photothermal Effect of Gold Nanorods

Paper:

Achieving a New Controllable Male Contraception by the Photothermal Effect of Gold Nanorods

Wen-qing Li, Chun-yang Sun, Feng Wang, Yu-cai Wang, Yi-wen Zhai, Meng Liang, Wen-jing Liu, Zhi-min Liu, Jun Wang, and Fei Sun

Keywords: gold nanorods, sterilization, near-infrared, plasmonics, hyperthermia, poly(ethylene glycol),

I didn't summarize all of this paper, because the last half of the paper was more about actual mechanism of the infertility instead of the actual intervention.

Dead Body: No one has tried controllable male infertility with use of gold nanorods before and they think it can be done.


Prior work:


Solution: Coat the AuNRs with α-lipoyl-ω-hydroxyl polyer(ethylene glycol), injection them in the testes, and irradiate with 800 nm light to achieve the long or short term infertility

Background: hyperthermia driven extinction of cancer cells has been shown before. Furthermore, hyperthermia will destroy testicular function and spermatogenesis.

What are the most interesting results:

high concentration GNRs with higher irradiation achieved >50°C after 5 minutes in solution and >45°C in the mouse testes.
Furthermore, this treatment completely destroyed the testes.
What are the most interesting discussions:

They determined that the infertility was the result of protein degredation at the higher temperatures
Au presence after the treatment was concentrated mainly in the liver and spleen because of the bodies typical clearing mechanism – reticuloendothelial system uptakeMaterials used:
α-lipoyl-ω-hydroxyl polyer(ethylene glycol) coated AuNRs 10nm diameter x 40nm long, phosphate buffered saline

How this applies to my work:

All of these are in solution, and not in a nanostructure, so it is hard to suggest that it is directly applicable.
It shows the promise of hyperthermia treatment through AuNPs and AuNRs, or just plasmonics in general
Is there any reason that you would want to template the AuNRs?
Could the NRs be encapsulated in a BCP, and then transported to the testes?
Applications:
Cited - testicular infertility, cancer treatement

My own -