Using starch as a novel drug transporter?

25-Aug-2023 - A special type of starch could soon be used as an excipient in medicine to improve the treatment of patients. A research team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) has discovered that it makes a suitable drug release system and has advantages over already established excipients. ...

On the spot drug delivery with light-controlled organic microswimmers

Science Fiction novelists couldn’t have come up with a crazier plot

03-Feb-2022 - Microrobots streaming through blood or through other fluids in our body which are driven by light, can carry drugs to cancer cells and drop off the medication on the spot. What sounds like a far-fetched fantasy, is however the short summary of a research project published in the journal Science ...

Millimetre-precision drug delivery to the brain

Method is set to enable treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders and tumours with fewer side effects in the future.

08-Oct-2020 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method for concentrating and releasing drugs in the brain with pinpoint accuracy. This could make it possible in the future to deliver psychiatric and cancer drugs and other medications only to those regions of the brain where this is medically ...

Secure nano-carrier delivers medications directly to cells

Nanoparticles with synthetic DNA can control release of drugs

30-Sep-2020 - Medications often have unwanted side-effects. One reason is that they reach not only the unhealthy cells for which they are intended, but also reach and have an impact on healthy cells. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), working together with the KTH Royal Institute of ...

Researchers Discover New Crystalline Calcium Phosphate

The mineral could be used in implantology, drug development or water treatment

03-Apr-2020 - A new type of crystalline calcium phosphate has been discovered and analysed in the laboratories of Leibniz University Hannover (LUH). Calcium orthophosphates, a group of biominerals, are a vital part of the human body and can be found in solid structures such as bones or teeth. Calcium ...

Contact lenses with medicine and sugar

23-Apr-2019 - Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP are working with Israeli and German partners to develop long-wearing contact lenses that can release medicine. The active ingredient is encapsulated in liposomes and bound to the inside of the contact lenses. This enables it ...

Focussed ultrasound used to improve effects of cancer drugs

12-Jul-2018 - Researchers have made a breakthrough in more precisely targeting drugs to cancers. Using ultrasound and lipid drug carriers (liposomes), a multi-disciplinary team of biomedical engineers, oncologists, radiologists and anaesthetists at the University of Oxford have developed a new way to improve ...

Producing handy gels from a protein found in human blood

07-Mar-2018 - From blood to the lab: the protein albumin is responsible for many vital processes in the human body. In nature it only appears as a solution when dissolved in water. Chemists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have developed a method of producing various albumin-based gels. Their ...

Multifunctional nano-sized drug carriers based on reactive polypept(o)ides

15-Sep-2017 - In cooperation with researchers from the University of Tokyo and Gutenberg Research Awardee Prof. Kazunori Kataoka, Chemists from Mainz have been able to demonstrate that reactive polypept(o)ides constitute ideal building blocks to control morphology and function of carrier systems in a simple ...

Soap bubbles for treating stenosed blood vessels

15-Mar-2016 - Liposomes are currently used as drug delivery vehicles but recognized by the immune system. Scientists from the universities of Basel and Fribourg have shown that special artificial liposomes do not elicit any reaction in human and porcine sera as well as pigs. Liposomes are soap-bubble-like ...