New nanometer sized “cargo-ship†developed for destroying tumor
18 September 2008Researchers at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT reported that they have developed nanometer-sized cargo-ships that can travel to any part of the body through blood stream. The new device is integrated with therapeutic and diagnostic functions.
The device contains imaging agents and drugs encapsulated and protected in a mother ship, which otherwise would have destroyed by our immune system in blood stream. Mother ships are 50 nanometer and are equipped with molecular arrays on the surface so that the mother ship can penetrate tumor cells. This microscopic device will enhance the possibilities of delivering high payloads of anticancer drugs to the tumor cells without having any side effects to the human body.
For developing these cargo ships, researchers modified lipids in such a way so that these can circulate in blood stream for many hours. Further the device was made strong enough so that accidentally don’t release the contents while circulating in blood stream. Researchers especially engineered a protein called F3, which sticks to the tumor cell so that it can transport itself to the nuclei. Researchers using these devices conducted a series of experiment on mice.
Researchers loaded the ship with magnetic nanoparticles, fluorescent quantum dots and a small molecule of drug. This was the first experiment conducted on a live animal. Although the initial results are encouraging, further research in this field is going on.
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