Crystal balls are finally proving useful for genuine medical applications. This is thanks to researchers at Drexel University where materials scientists are producing nano-scale crystal balls designed to distribute drugs within the body. The investigators hope that their hollow crystal structures may be better than the widely popular liposomes for encapsulating drugs because they’re considerably stronger.
Hollow sphere-like crystals are not easy to make since they tend to grow in straight lines and end up with sharp corners. Moreover, the centers of naturally produced crystals are rarely hollow.
Christopher Li, the leader of the research, used bubbles of oil to hold water molecules. Cooling these bubbles carefully let the water inside crystallize into tiny hollow spheres of ice. Different materials will be used in the future, but the promise of using crystals to hold onto fragile drugs while moving through the body’s turbulent pathways is already being foreshadowed.
Study in Nature Communications: Highly robust crystalsome via directed polymer crystallization at curved liquid/liquid interface…
Via: Drexel University…