Two North Carolina universities created a new nanoparticle that can act like tiny machines to kill cancer cells.

The new nanoparticles perform a sequence of tasks in a preset, specific order to overcome cancer cells, according to MSN News.

The new approach to fighting cancer just shows how complex designing anti-cancer drugs is in the emerging field of biomedical engineering. The nanoparticles persuade a cancer cell to latch onto it, and then it uses first one method, then another to kill the cells, the report said.

"They are programmed almost like a computer so that they tackle the problem step by step," Zhen Gu, senior author of a paper on the research, told MSN News. Gu is part of a joint biomedical engineering program at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

According to Tianyu Jiang, the nanoparticle isn't exactly a drug itself, but a drug delivery vehicle. Jang is lead author of the paper and works in Gu's lab.

The nanoparticle's unusual nature appeared on "Advanced Functional Materials'" bimonthly edition. The research paper details how the nanoparticle works and its succeeding results after Gu's team tested it on human breast-cancer tumors in mice. Apparently, the new approach is far more effective than the usual conventional treatment techniques to reduce tumors.

According to Gu, his team wanted to develop a more effective way to target cancer cells using multiple drugs. The planned way is less likely to provoke cancer cells to develop resistance that is common in single-drug treatments.

It should be noted that different drugs target different parts of cancer cells. Gu's team thought it would be a better approach to deliver two drugs at the same time to different parts of a cell. This was made possible by their engineered nanoparticle.

"The early results are very promising, and we think this could be scaled up for large-scale manufacturing," Gu said.