MIT: Striped Nanoparticles Can Deliver Drugs Inside Cells
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created the first synthetic molecules that can penetrate a cell without killing it. This discovery could change how cancer drugs are delivered to tumors.
In recent years, scientists around the world have been exploring ways to use nanoscale devices to deliver potent oncology drugs and other medicines to specific cells inside the body. Tremendous advances have been made in the field of nanoengineering, but a big problem has plagued tiny drug delivery devices. When cells recognize a foreign object, they wrap themselves around the object and encase it in a small bubble to be excreted later. This biological phenomenon keeps the drug cargo carried inside the devices from reaching the sections of the cell where it would have the most effect.
MIT’s team found that gold nanoparticles coated with alternating bands of two different types of molecules could quickly pass through the protective membranes of cells without harming them while similar nanoparticles coated randomly with the same materials couldn’t. According to MIT, the stripes were the key.
MIT’s innovation could impact more that just drug delivery — it may also help scientists learn more about how peptides and other biological materials enter living cells.
The co-leaders of the project were Francesco Stellacci, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Darrell Irvine, the Eugene Bell Career Development Associate Professor of Tissue Engineering.
If you’d like to learn more about MIT’s striped nanoparticles, their research is published, in the May 25, 2008, advance online edition of Nature Materials.
Source: MIT News
Related Links: sciencex2.org; National Nanotechnology Initiative
Related Audio: Nanoparticles of a Different Stripe from Technology Review by MIT
Technorati Tags: chemotherapy; cytosol; nanomedicine; nanoscience; targeted therapies
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