Thursday, June 16, 2005

Burnham Institute to Mount Nano-Attack on Atherosclerotic Plaque

Filed under: Nanomedicine

Burnham Institute, a La Jolla, CA-based nonprofit biomedical research institution, has been awarded $13M from the NIH to develop a nanotech approach to coronary artery disease treatment:

Recent studies have shown that plaque exists in two modes: non-vulnerable and vulnerable. Blood passing through an artery exerts a shearing force and can cause vulnerable plaque to rupture, which often leads to occlusion and myocardial infarction. This is a significant health issue: of the nearly one million people who die each year from cardiac disease, 60% perish without showing any symptoms. As many as 60 - 80% of sudden cardiac deaths can be attributed to the physical rupture of vulnerable plaque...

The project team will work on three innovative solutions to combat vulnerable plaque; 1) building delivery vehicles that can be used to transport drugs and nanodevices to sites of vulnerable plaque; 2) designing a series of self-assembling polymers that can be used as molecular nano-stents to physic all y stabilize vulnerable plaque, 3) creating nano-machines comprised of human proteins linked to synthetic nano-devices for the purpose of sensing and responding to vulnerable plaque.

The press release...

FuturePundit looks at related nanotechnologies, that one day might even be rejuvenating...

(hat tip: Puppy Blender)

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