Dr. James Coverdale from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Birmingham said: “Until now, it’s only been possible to measure average boron uptake in hundreds-of-thousands of cells, which masks important differences between individual cells. Our single-cell approach reveals this variability, which is critical in a tumor setting where heterogeneity often determines whether treatment works or fails.
“We believe the results are exciting because we now have the first direct evidence of how much boron is present in individual tumor cells, and how long it stays there. This information could help to optimise when neutron irradiation should be delivered relative to drug administration. By showing which transport pathways bring boron into cells, the work also offers clues for designing better drugs that accumulate more effectively. For the cancer drug discovery community, this study opens a new way of evaluating BNCT drug candidates.”
A key breakthrough was creating the right environment for cells to stay alive long enough for measurement, while maintaining compatibility with the highly sensitive equipment. This challenge required the team to carefully optimise both the culture medium and the way cancer cells were introduced into the instrument. Without this step, the cells would rapidly deteriorate, making it impossible to capture meaningful data.
Jack Finch, co-first author of the study and University of Birmingham Biochemistry alumni said: “This will be vital for testing and comparing future BNCT drugs and will help to identify the most effective treatments. Ultimately, our work supports progress toward making the already promising BNCT into a more precise and effective cancer treatment.”
According to Cancer Research UK, Head and neck cancer is the 8th most common cancer in the UK, accounting for 3% of all new cancer cases (2017-2019).
Reference: Finch JG, Pass RJ, Fabbrizi MR, et al. Kinetic analysis of boron therapeutics in head and neck cancer cells by complementary bulk ICP-MS and single-cell (scICP-MS) approaches. J Anal At Spectrom. 2025. doi: 10.1039/D5JA00228A
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