To prevent reducing side effects such as hair loss and skin damage, researchers have designed a set of shape-shifting nanoparticles attached with DNA that can carry medicines straight to cancer cells. Many cancer medicines target fast-developing cells. When injected into a patient, they sliver throughout in the bloodstream working on fast-growing cells.

Professor Warren Chan from the University of Toronto has consumed the ten years in research to deliver chemotherapy drugs into tumors and nowhere else.

According to scientists, early-stage breast cancer may respond differently to a given treatment than pancreatic cancer.

The tumors depend on various factors such as the size of the particle, shape and surface chemistry.

Scientists research that these factors dictate the distribution of small molecules and nano technologies to tumors. It has now designed a targeted molecular delivery system that uses modular nanoparticles in which the shape, size and chemistry can be altered by the existence of specific DNA sequences.

According to Chan, the nanoparticles is not harmless and float  in the blood stream, until a DNA strand fixes to a sequence of DNA known to be a marker for cancer. When this occurs, the particle changes shape, then carries out its function, it can target the cancer cells, uncover a drug molecule to the cancerous cell, or tag the cancerous cells with a signal molecule.

The research was available in the journals PNAS and Science.