Jinwoo Cheon and Jin-Suck Suh, published a paper in Nature Medicine Nanoparticles as small as 1/100,000th of a human hair have successfully used as cancer chasers for the detecting small cancer (2 mm). Professors Jinwoo Cheon (Chemistry) and Jin-Suck Suh (College of Medicine) developed ultra-sensitive nanoparticle probes which selectively bind to cancer cells, and successfully utilized them for visualizing early staged cancer via MRI. Intelligent nanoparticles called "MEIO (Magnetism Engineered Iron Oxide)" was developed by Professor Jinwoo Cheon’s team while MRI and medical researches were performed by Professor Jin-Suck Suh's team. Their achievements were published in Nature Medicine on December 25, a world-top class scientific magazine. Ultra-sensitive and self-navigating nanoparticle "MEIO" detects 2mm sized cancer by MRI. The research team first developed a very small (~10 nm) sized intelligent nanoparticle, MEIO. When these nanoparticles were injected into a mouse with breast cancer (or ovarian cancer), they successfully visualized early staged cancer with 2 mm size via MRI. MRI provides excellent 3-dimensional tomography of a patient body and has been a powerful technique for diagnosing cancers. However, with conventional MRI technique, it has been difficult to detect early staged small cancer due to its relatively low MRI sensitivity to cancer tissue. Such weakness can be overcomed by using this new technique. Professor Jinwoo Cheon explains for the MEIO synthesis: "MRI signal enhancement effect is significantly improved by doping magnetically susceptible manganese atoms into iron oxide based MEIO nanoparticles, which is 10 times higher than that of state-of-the-art molecular imaging agent "CLIO". Professor Jin-Suck Suh stated “When MEIO is conjugated with cancer specific antibodies, the intelligent nanoparticle MEIO has a self-navigating capability for selectively reaching to the cancer cells. While CLIO, the current state-of-the-art molecular imaging agent developed by researchers at Harvard University, could not provide a clear image of the diseased region, according to animal tests performed by Yonsei researchers, 2mm cancer tissue was clearly imaged by using MEIO nanoparticles under MRI scan. Accordingly, MEIO is expected to bring innovative advances in the diagnosis of early staged cancers. The research team also stated, “MEIO is biologically safe according to our cell toxicity tests. We expect to be able to diagnose not only early staged cancers such as liver cancer or lung cancer but also vascular disorders including apoplexy and myocardial infarction.” In addition, this is an opportunity to preoccupy nano medicine technology and there will be extended researches for the commercialization of MEIO. This research was supported by Nanomedical National Core Research Center, National Research Laboratory, National Cancer Institute CCNE project, and Cancer Conquest Project of National Cancer Center.