By Anne Ju - <br><br>Nanoparticles designed to adhere to and light up cancer cells have reached a major milestone in their bench-to-bedside journey. A first clinical trial of these ultrasmall, multifunctional particles has deemed them safe for humans and cleared easily by the body.<br><br>The <a href="http://medicalxpress.com/tags/particles/">particles</a>, called "C dots" (Cornell dots), were invented more than a decade ago by Uli Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. They have been undergoing a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Investigational New Drug (IND) human clinical trial since 2010. The results of that study, which involved five patients with melanoma, were published Oct. 29 in Science Translational Medicine and featured on the journal's cover.<br><br><a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-10-human-clinical-trial-dots-highlights.html">READ MORE ON MEDICAL XPRESS</a><br><br>Ref: "Clinical translation of an ultrasmall inorganic optical-PET imaging nanoparticle probe," Sci Transl Med 29 October 2014: Vol. 6, Issue 260, p. 260ra149 Sci. Transl. Med. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.3009524">DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3009524</a>
