EDMONTON, Alberta, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Silver nanoparticles, long touted as a technology that could transform medicine, have yet to fulfill that potential, a Canadian researcher says.
Robert Burrell of the University of Alberta in Edmonton and Canada research chairman in nanostructured biomaterials, said silver nanoparticles "don't work" in medicine and are a dead end, in terms of medical applications.
"There's an overwhelming amount of material about nanomaterials and how good they are, but if you actually critically look at the papers, you can see that people were looking to get an effect, and they designed their experiment to get that effect in many instances," Burrell said in a statement. "These people aren't fibbing. They're showing that you can get an anti-microbial effect in a test-tube."
Burrell said a more promising approach may be found in use of nanocrystalline silver, which he used to invent a wound dressing he said is now being used to treat burn victims in 40 countries.
However, diagnostic tools using nanowires, or new treatments that slip in and deliver chemotherapy directly into tumors, remain a distant dream, Burrell said.
Silver nanoparticles are already being embedded -- as an antibacterial agent -- into anti-stink socks, washing machines and medical devices such as surgical tools and disinfectant sprays although their long-term consequences are unclear.
The findings were published in February's Canadian Medical Association Journal.
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