The Big Impact

Sandra Davern performs cell based assays to evaluate cell death and DNA damage in response to radiation in order to gain a better understanding of how radioisotope nanoparticles affect the human body.

Sandra Davern performs cell based assays to evaluate cell death and DNA damage in response to radiation in order to gain a better understanding of how radioisotope nanoparticles affect the human body.

When Sandra Davern looks to the future, she sees individualized isotopes sent into the body with a specific target: cancer cells.

A radioisotope researcher in the Radioisotope Science and Technology Division at ORNL, Davern is focusing on ways to use nanoparticles — particles 100 nanometers or smaller that can have special properties — to contain those radioisotopes and deliver them directly to cancer cells, where they can decay into different isotopes that irradiate those cells.

The advantage of using nanoparticles as a delivery method is that those “decay daughters” are contained to the target area, rather than entering the body’s circulation and irradiating healthy tissue, she said.

See full highlight at ORNL.gov