Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an experimental nanotechnology that could open a new path toward treating glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. The technology uses microscopic injectable devices that can be activated by an external magnetic field, generating localized electric fields designed to kill cancer cells while limiting damage to surrounding healthy tissue.
HITMAN, which means highly localized electric-field-induced tumor therapy using magnetically actuated nanoantennas, is the name of the new system. Scientists shared the details of the study in Science Advances on Sept. 9, 2026 after testing in laboratory experiments with tumor cells from patients and in mice.
Glioblastoma is a serious challenge for modern medicine because its cells can infiltrate surrounding brain tissue, develop resistance to treatment, and recur even after surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. The blood-brain barrier also prevents many drugs from reaching the brain. These difficulties make it hard to eliminate tumors without damaging the sensitive tissue responsible for essential neurological functions.
HITMAN uses a novel method of using micro and nanoscopic electronic structures, about 150 nanometers in size, to generate localized effects at the tumor site. These nanoantennas can be stimulated with a weak magnetic field that is created outside the body, allowing localized electric fields to “short circuit” the cancer-cell rapid growth process without necessarily requiring traditional chemotherapy.
One of the most exciting findings was from experiments using cells taken from patients with the most aggressive form of glioblastoma that does not respond to chemotherapy. In the lab, the new technology destroyed 52.2% of those cancer cells. The MIT team says it was more than five times greater than the effect of temozolomide, a standard chemotherapy drug for glioblastoma.
Another key finding was that healthy neurons and astrocytes, which play a role in supporting normal brain function, also were unaffected by the experiments. This is significant because the treatments’ ability to discriminate between healthy and malignant cells does not necessarily mean that an equivalent level of safety will be observed in patients.
The investigators then advanced the approach outside the laboratory and into mice with brain tumors for which human patients are being treated. They found much slower tumor growth and median survival was increased by more than 50%, relative to the control animals. The study authors noted that there was no apparent toxicity to major organs or normal tissues.
Another positive finding concerned the formation of new colonies of cancer cells. After treatment, the number of colonies observed in laboratory experiments dropped from approximately 112150 in the control groups to 26 in the treated group. Meaning the approach may have potential to limit the growth of surviving cancer cells, although further studies are needed to determine if it can reduce tumor recurrence in living patients.
“We have the highest hopes that in case the wireless activation technology will enter into a clinical application, it would be a useful tool. Since the magnetic field can penetrate the skull and brain tissue, the nanoantennas can be activated without the need for a wire to connect each nanoanttena to an external source, ” explains Liao.