Timing is key to knocking out cancer.

• Position: Nanoparticles

A novel cancer treatment that destroys tumor cells by first disarming their defenses, then hitting them with a lethal dose of DNA damage has been devised by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. The research team showed that this one-two punch, which relies on a nanoparticle that carries two drugs and releases them at different times, dramatically shrinks lung and breast tumors. The team was led by Michael Yaffe, professor of science, and Paula Hammond, professor of engineering.

"I think it's a harbinger of what nanomedicine can do for us in the future," says Hammond, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. "We're moving from the simplest model of the nanoparticle--just getting the drug in there and targeting it--to having smart nanoparticles that deliver drug combinations in the way that you need to really attack the tumor."

Doctors routinely give cancer patients two or more different chemotherapy drugs in hopes that a multipronged attack will be more successful than a single drug. While many studies have identified drugs that work well together, a 2012 paper from Yaffe's lab was the first to show that the timing of drug administration can influence the outcome dramatically.

In that study, Yaffe found he could weaken cancer cells by administering the drug erlotinib, which shuts down one of the pathways that...