Gold-coated drug nanocapsules show promise for targeted cancer therapy

Using lab-based experiments, a recent study demonstrates that gold-coated nanoparticles carrying a combination of drugs are effective in treating a type of skin cancer called melanoma, and fungal infections. This collaborative study was carried out by Dr Aravind Kumar Rengan’s group in IITH and Dr Chittaranjan Patra’s lab at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology Hyderabad. Their findings open up possibilities of affordable localised therapy using multiple lines of treatment that attack cancer cells and co-occurring microbial infections.

Reference: Sankaranarayanan, S. A., Srivastava, R., Eswar, K., Tripathy, S., Nagchowdhury, P., Rao, M. J., Patra, C., & Rengan, A. K. (2026). Development of gold coated calcium peroxide nanoparticles for photothermal ferroptosis against skin cancer and C. albicans. Communications Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-025-01878-4