( y promising”. If the research team...)Carbon Nanoneedles For Drug Delivery,Health

y promising”.

If the research team's working hypothesis regarding the uptake of functionalised carbon nanotubes is correct, the technique could offer significant advantages over other drug delivery mechanisms currently used.

Traditional delivery methods (using liposomes for example) usually exploit endocytosis, but stop before reaching the cytoplasm leaving other barriers for the drug to fight through. By piercing plasma membranes and heading straight to the cytoplasm, the functionalised carbon nanotube encounters fewer biological barriers and delivers the drug more directly.

The nanotubes also offer a structural advantage in that they are extremely thin but very long, offering a large surface area on which to graft the required drug. This again offers an improvement over liposome drug delivery, and also allows the amount of drug loaded onto the nanotube to be regulated.

Kostarelos observed that developments and improvements in carbon nanotube material are occurring almost daily, and the product itself is therefore likely to become more refined over time. Although difficult to assess the cost of a potential drug delivery product resulting from the technique, Kostarelos noted that there is so many possible applications for carbon nanotubes that they can be produced in bulk very cheaply.

Although functionalisation of the nanotubes would increase the cost slightly, it would still represent ”an economic benefit to pharmaceutical companies, especially compared to liposomes” Kostarelos said.

The functionalised carbon nanotube work is still at a relatively early stage, and the researchers say that they are still defining a framework as far as pharmaceutical development is concerned.

The team is, however, pursuing the line of research and the potential of functionalised carbon nanotubes for drug delivery. Kostarelos told In-PharmaTechnologist that he hopes to have data concerning the efficacy of dr
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