Tiny remote-controlled tubes may one day let doctors deliver potent drugs to the exact spots in the body they are most needed.
The nanotubes, which are typically about 100 nanometers long, or one ten-millionth of an inch, are made from a special polymer that conducts electricity.
Here's how it's done:
Drug molecules and fibers of a polymer that breaks down in the body are mixed together. The mixture is placed on the tip of a tiny gold electrode, a type of medical probe that can transmit or receive electrical signals.
Tiny remote-controlled tubes may one day let doctors deliver potent drugs to the exact spots in the body they are most needed.
The nanotubes, which are typically about 100 nanometers long, or one ten-millionth of an inch, are made from a special polymer that conducts electricity.
Here's how it's done:
Drug molecules and fibers of a polymer that breaks down in the body are mixed together. The mixture is placed on the tip of a tiny gold electrode, a type of medical probe that can transmit or receive electrical signals.
The coated electrode is placed in a solution that contains another type of polymer, the one that conducts the electricity. An electrical current is applied to the solution, causing the conductive polymer to form tubes around the drug-and-fiber mixture, like microscopic cannoli.
"So now what you can do is control the release of the drugs out from the inside of these little tubes, because these conducting polymers can be actuated,"