Tuesday, January 19, 2010

'Nanoburrs' Stick to and Deliver Drugs to Damaged Arteries

Filed under: Nanomedicine

Researchers at Harvard and MIT have designed new novel nanoparticles to treat atherosclerosis. The particles have a "sticky" outer coating which attaches to tissue basement membrane, something that is only exposed in damaged portions of the arterial wall. In this fashion, once injected into the bloodstream the particles will "seek out" arteries that need treatment. Once stuck, the particles slowly release a drug, paclitaxel, that slows and potentially reverses the closing off of that artery.

The new technology is designed to be used in conjunction with stents, and also to be used in areas where stent placement would not be feasible. In one experiment, the researchers injected the particles into a rat tail, where they subsequently traveled through the bloodstream and attached to the rats damaged left carotid artery. This exciting technology is currently undergoing further refinement and animal testing.

Read more from MIT here...

Abstract in PNAS: Nanoscale cues regulate the structure and function of macroscopic cardiac tissue constructs

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