Chemotherapy — the therapeutic introduction of chemical toxins to cancerous tissue — can lose its effectiveness relatively quickly. Due primarily to a strongly conserved, pumping mechanism, known as cell efflux, chemo-resistant tumor cells are able to rapidly pump the anti-tumor chemicals out of the cell, rendering the chemotherapy much less effective. Pumped-out chemotoxins end up building up in extracellular tissue and sometimes killing healthy cells. This add both to the pain, and cost, of chemo.

But the key to enhancing the therapy lies in the chemistry and the geometry of simple carbon crystals known as nanodiamonds.