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Smart Drugs: These are nanomaterials which become active inside cells only when an infection invades. This has been practically demonstrated by Yoshihisa Suzuki at Kyoto University, who designed a drug that releases antibiotics only when an infection enters the cell. [1] This gives these drugs specificity, i.e the drugs will attack only a single kind of bacteria unlike the kind of drugs of present which attack kinds of bacteria. This increases the risk of drug resistant bacteria. Another example of smart drugs is immunotoxins is a molecule which is actually a fusion to different protein (1) toxins, (2) antibody. A toxin is molecule produced by bacteria which binds with the host cell, enters it and then kills it. While an antibody is produced by the immune system and is used identify and destroys foreign molecules. Using the gene codes for the antibody and the antitoxin a new molecule is formed which is used to destroy cancer cells. The antibody provides the specificity nature which makes the immunotoxin attach only to cancer cells while the toxicity nature of the toxin allows it to destroy the cancer cells. [2]
Gene therapy to treat disease has been of great interest in the field medicine. However several problems are associated with this process like to condense the required piece of DNA so that it may pass through the cell membrane. Also once it has entered the cell to ensure that it is not hydrolyzed by enzyme in the cell solution i.e. cytoplasm and finally to ensure that that by the time it reaches the cell nucleus it can undergo transcription. Nanoparticles now provide an alternative method to viral gene therapy because of economic manufacturing and safety reasons. [9]
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Copyright © 2005
Nanogroup Beta: Jason Feng, Maryam Liaqat, Eric Shubo Ma |
Physics 87N: Prof. Hari Manoharan
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