“Not commercialized” is not the same as “no use has been found”. Plenty of uses have been found, including superconductivity and chemical tagging. The Wikipedia article on fullerenes (as opposed to buckminsterfullerene) lists a number of medical uses, which are clearly not simply laboratory curiosities:
Applications[edit]
Fullerenes have been extensively used for several biomedical applications including the design of high-performance MRI contrast agents, X-Ray imaging contrast agents, photodynamic therapy and drug and gene delivery, summarized in several comprehensive reviews.[57]
Tumor research[edit]
While past cancer research has involved radiation therapy, photodynamic therapy is important to study because breakthroughs in treatments for tumor cells will give more options to patients with different conditions. More recent experiments using HeLa cells in cancer research involves the development of new photosensitizers with increased ability to be absorbed by cancer cells and still trigger cell death. It is also important that a new photosensitizer does not stay in the body for a long time to prevent unwanted cell damage.[58]
Fullerenes can be made to be absorbed by HeLa cells. The C60 derivatives can be delivered to the cells by using the functional groups L-phenylalanine, folic acid, and L-arginine among others.[59] The purpose for functionalizing the fullerenes is to increase the solubility of the molecule by the cancer cells. Cancer cells take up these molecules at an increased rate because of an upregulation of transporters in the cancer cell, in this case amino acid transporters will bring in the L-arginine and L-phenylalanine functional groups of the fullerenes.[60]
Once absorbed by the cells, the C60 derivatives would react to light radiation by turning molecular oxygen into reactive oxygen which triggers apoptosis in the HeLa cells and other cancer cells that can absorb the fullerene molecule. This research shows that a reactive substance can target cancer cells and then be triggered by light radiation, minimizing damage to surrounding tissues while undergoing treatment.[61]
When absorbed by cancer cells and exposed to light radiation, the reaction that creates reactive oxygen damages the DNA, proteins, and lipids that make up the cancer cell. This cellular damage forces the cancerous cell to go through apoptosis, which can lead to the reduction in size of a tumor. Once the light radiation treatment is finished the fullerene will reabsorb the free radicals to prevent damage of other tissues.[62] Since this treatment focuses on cancer cells, it is a good option for patients whose cancer cells are within reach of light radiation. As this research continues into the future, it will be able to penetrate deeper into the body and be absorbed by cancer cells more effectively.[58]
A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecules consist of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to seven atoms. The molecules may have hollow sphere- and ellipsoid-like forms, tubes, or other shapes.
Fullerenes with a closed mesh topology are informally denoted by their empirical formula Cn, often written Cn, where n is the number of carbon atoms. However, for some values of n there may be more than on...
AskNott
December 31, 2015, 1:01am
23
Buckyballs have been described as spheres composed of hexagonal and pentagonal structures; in short, very, very small soccer balls. All you need to find is a very, very small soccer league with a very, very large equipment budget.
Buckyballs and Carbon Nanotubes future use is use in fighting cancer.
Buckyballs and Carbon Nanotubes in Cancer Therapies and Medical Treatment Applications
Buckyballs might offer a non-toxic molecular ship to deliver the materials safely to fragile bones. And on a more distant horizon, buckyballs may someday carry light-activated and/or cancer-killing drugs to tumour cells. Smalley would love to see this last application happen soon. The discoverer of buckyballs has recently suffered a recurrence of lymphatic cancer.
That’s two of about a thousand promising potential treatments for cancer that are being studied right now. Only a very small percentage of them ever actually amount to anything. And there are other varieties of light-activated drugs that seem more promising.
j666
January 1, 2016, 2:13pm
26
Washoe:
… all six of the treated rats exhibited empirically observable signs of decelerated aging, as evidenced by visual inspection of their eyes and the quality and texture of their fur. That’s not woo—it’s a significant finding, even if it only demonstrates that something significant occurred in those six rats.
Bolding mine - that doesn’t sound like a very objective test; visual inspection is a terrible “test”.
There is a strong movement to more personalized medicine; a new treatment might only work for a sub-population of patients, but be an excellent treatment for that group. That is why clinical trials are structure to include significant percentage of women, for example, now.
Washoe
January 11, 2016, 9:05pm
27
Fullernenes are also being investigated as a treatment for allergic asthma .