At the London Centre for Nanotechnology, a project organized by University College London and Imperial College London, researchers developed novel nanoscale drug delivery vesicles that can be designed to selectively release only certain cargo.
The vesicles are polymersomes, tiny bubbles made of a stable polymer, that contain embedded DNA nanopores within their membranes. The nanopores are made of self-assembling DNA strings and can be tuned to form into a cylindrical shape having a hole of a predefined size.
The polymersomes can contain organic molecules of various sizes, but only ones that are smaller than the nanopores will be allowed to exit the containers. Larger enzymes that can be carried along within the vesicles remain catalytically active and so able to take part in nearby reactions.
The researchers believe the technology has great potential drug delivery, as well as for imaging, biocatalysis, and cell mimicry applications.
Study in Angewandte Chemie: Biomimetic Hybrid Nanocontainers with Selective Permeability…
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