Site card
Magnetic hyperthermia equipment
Where:
Center for Biomedical Technology
Ubicación:
Laboratorio de Bioinstrumentación y Nanomedicina, Centro de Tecnología Biomédica (CTB)
Typology:
Infraestructura Científica
Manager: José Javier Serrano Olmedo
Email:
This equipment enables experiments involving the excitation of magnetic nanoparticles using alternating magnetic fields, causing the particles to generate heat. The system makes it possible to work with nanoparticles in inert samples, using a calorimeter to measure the specific absorption rate (SAR) of energy, or energy which the magnetic field transmits to the particles and which induces an increase in temperature, from which the SAR may be deduced. It also makes it possible to work with samples at a fixed external temperature, such that the heat produced only increases the temperature locally. In that case, experiments can be conducted with cell cultures and small animals (mice) or with samples of other kinds. The equipment can generate excitation with four non-sinusoidal waveforms, with a constant and controlled gradient from triangular to almost square, and a fifth sinusoidal signal in the range from 100 kHz to 1 MHz and with a peak intensity of up to 10 mT. The system has a user interface that displays the current and magnetic field in real time. The electromagnetic field is generated using a coil, inside which different sample holders can be placed, as required, which ensure that the sample is always insulated from the heat generated by the coil itself.
Health, Medicine. It is used in the development of anti-cancer technologies based on magnetic nanoparticles, although it could be extended to other sectors and fields of application of superparamagnetism.
In magnetic hyperthermia, nanoparticles are used to raise the temperature of the pathologically cancerous cell enough to induce its death by apoptosis, but not so much as to destroy it by thermal ablation of the whole area of tissue, leaving the healthy cells alive.
The type of waveform is a decisive factor in the efficacy of heat production by magnetic nanoparticles, such that different particles in different matrices maximise their heat production with different waveforms, according to the frequency and intensity of the magnetic field.
For decades, conventional sinusoidal signals have been used in magnetic hyperthermia, exclusively, as the only alternating magnetic field waveform for exciting magnetic nanoparticles. However, other waveforms exhibit greater efficiency. Experimental results show that the heat-production performance of nanoparticles when exposed to trapezoid or almost square signals is, in the best case, 45.73 and 71.49% better, respectively, than with conventional sinusoidal signals.
This equipment could also be used to carry out research in other sectors, such as applications for the synterisation of materials or the development of sensors based on heating particles.
