MIT (US) researchers report devising nanoscale production units for manufacturing protein-based drugs with the human body.
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts, USA) report an advance toward treating disease with minute capsules containing not drugs — but the DNA and other biological machinery for making the drug. Daniel G. Anderson and colleagues have devised micro- and nano-sized capsules that contain the genetically coded instructions, plus the read-out gear and assembly line for protein synthesis that can be switched on with an external signal. The resulting nanoparticles produced active proteins on demand when the researchers shined a laser light on them, being turned on when needed to produce medicines that cannot be taken orally or are toxic and would harm other parts of the body.
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Avi Schroeder, Michael S. Goldberg, Christian Kastrup, Yingxia Wang, Shan Jiang, Daniel G. Anderson, et al. “Remotely Activated Protein-Producing Nanoparticles.” Nano Lett., 2012, 12 (6), pp 2685–2689.