Indian-origin scientist designs tiny 'vehicle' to drive drugs to targets

New Delhi, Sep 21: With the side-effects of therapy being one of the major stumbling blocks in advancing treatment for deadly diseases, a team of scientists, including one of Indian origin, has designed a "nanovehicle" that could drive ***** straight to their destinations - the diseased tissues - thereby sparing other healthy organs from any unintended effects. Made of gold nanoparticles, the nanovehicle was found to be non-toxic when tested in cultured human cell lines, study co-author Arnab De of the Chicago-based AbbVie Bioresearch Centre told IANS in an e-mail interview. "***** should ideally act only on diseased tissues. However, it is difficult to deliver ***** only to diseased tissues without affecting other healthy tissues. The side effects of ***** are often seen on these healthy tissues," De, a PhD from Columbia University in the City of New York, explained. "This is a proof-of-concept study that shows that it may be possible to selectively navigate a drug to certain tissues. However, extensive animal studies need to be done to determine non-specific targeting in animals," noted De, who collaborated for the research with a team of scientists from the University of Delhi. The research was conducted at professor Subho Mozumdar's laboratory at the University of Delhi. Other co-authors of the study were Tanusri Nandi and Seema Garg, a student in Mozumdar's lab who played an important role in synthesising the nanoparticles.