The first joint PhD student with I14 publishes research into a potential new cancer treatment

Elizabth Bolitho (right) and Fangxin Wang (left) in the I14 control cabin.

Using Diamond’s Hard X-ray Nanoprobe beamline (I14), researchers could see how Osmium, a rare precious metal that could be used for cancer treatments, reacts in a single human lung cancer cell. Dr Elizabeth Bolitho, from the University of Warwick, is the first joint PhD student with I14 and lead author on the research recently published in Angewante Chemie. The study is a major step forward in discovering new anti-cancer drugs, as currently half of the drugs used in chemotherapy contain the metal platinum. Once platinum is inside the cancer cell it reacts in the nucleus, which may lead to undesirable side effects of the treatment. However, as Osmium has fewer side effects it could be used as a new cancer treatment.

Elizabeth and the team used the 185 m I14 beamline to track Osmium in a single cancer cell at a scale of 100 nanometers for the first time. Elizabeth commented on the role of the beamline in her studies. She said:

The researchers used two techniques to track potential treatments in cancer cells. The first, ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry), can quantify a wide range of natural and drug elements in millions of cells. However, to investigate a single cancer cell, researchers used the synchrotron’s X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) imaging.

Professor Peter Sadler, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick, said:

X-ray fluorescence images taken at the I14 beamline at Diamond Light Source, the green is Zinc, Blue is Potassium, Orange is Osmium and Pink is Bromine.

Credit: University of Warwick.

Using the I14 beamline, researchers observed how Osmium reacted in a single lung cancer cell. However, the reactivity of Osmium is determined by its coating (its ligands), so they monitored the ligands too in the same XRF experiment by labelling them with Bromine. Once the Osmium was in the cell researchers observed that Osmium stays in the cytoplasm, whereas the ligands entered the nucleus, potentially indicative of dual attack on the cancer cell.

Prof. Sadler added: “Our team hopes to progress their discoveries through pre-clinical development towards new Osmium drugs for cancer treatment, although this typically takes several years. If we succeed, then the days and sleepless nights spent collecting XRF data at the Diamond synchrotron will certainly have been worthwhile.”

Paul Quinn, Imaging Group Leader at Diamond, commented:

Elizabeth concluded by noting how beneficial it has been to be working on I14 as the first PhD. She said:

“Throughout my PhD I was also fortunate enough to have first-hand experience into the new techniques and advances now available at the beamline, including differential phase contrast imaging, ptychography and XANES, with a resolution which can now reach down to 50 nm, and I am extremely excited about future collaborative publications with this beamline.

"Being a PhD student at Diamond is amazing, because I am able to collaborate with beamline scientists on a regular basis, and use state-of-the-art facilities to significantly advance the research, as well as contributing to such an exciting field.”

For more information about I14 at Diamond, or to discuss potential applications, please contact I14’s Principal Beamline Scientist, Paul Quinn: paul.quinn@diamond.ac.uk

As a major UK science facility, Diamond offers exciting prospects for PhD students across a wide variety of scientific and technical areas. Find out more about Diamond’s PhD programme.