Nanoparticles may Revolutionize Medicine

[Angel]

Imagine a device so tiny, yet so complex it could travel through the bloodstream to cancer cells, delivering lethal doses of a chemotherapy drug to those cells without impacting surrounding tissue.

It may not be as farfetched as it seems. Researchers from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill are already making good progress on such a device, called custom nanoparticles. Thousands of times smaller than the width of a single human hair, they are capable of carrying drugs, DNA or other substances to specific points in the body. Unlike earlier attempts at this technology, they also allow their developers to control their size, shape, and composition, along with their surface structure, which is key to their ultimate usefulness as a treatment in humans.

"I think this will transform the way one detects and treats disease," says study author Joseph DeSimone, Ph.D., a UNC chemistry professor.

The investigators have begun animal studies using the new technology, which takes its cue from the transistor industry, using a technique dubbed "particle replication in non-wetting templates," or PRINT.