Pollen-powered Delivery

Spring is a beautiful time of year as flowers start to bloom again. But for some, it spells trouble as hay fever goes into overdrive. While pesky pollen may be irritating for some, now it could be lifesaving for others – specifically those with a certain type of breast cancer. Triple-negative breast cancer makes up around 10–15% of all breast cancer cases and is difficult to treat as it’s missing three receptors that cancer therapeutics usually target. Studies suggest that the best way to treat this type of breast cancer is through chemotherapy, but combining that with the delivery of oxygen. This is where pollen (pictured) comes in as researchers showed it could be a useful way to deliver both chemotherapy with its spiky exterior, and oxygen due to its hollow centre – which can be released in a controlled manner using ultrasound – to the cancer cells simultaneously and help the treatments work better.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Sophie Arthur

former Science Communications Officer MRC LMS

Formerly a stem cell biologist, Sophie has since moved into science communication working at the MRC LMS. She also writes an award winning science and education blog Soph talks science.

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• Image from work by Baojie Wen and colleagues
• Department of Ultrasound, Institute of Translational Medicine, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medicine School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Advanced Science, May 2023