It is not just insulin pumps that keep getting smaller and more
intelligent. Researchers have started to experiment with
nanotherapeutics as a way to prevent and treat type 1 diabetes.
Clinical trials for this technology may be years away, but small
and targeted might be the way to go on the road to better
clinical care. Researchers at Wyss Institute for Biologically
Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Children’s
Hospital in Boston have developed “smart” injectable
nanoparticles that can be programmed to selectively deliver
drugs or stem cells to the pancreas. Only between 1 and 100
nanometers (nm) in size (a pin head is 1,500,000 nm), these
cells are highly specific cargo carriers with sophisticated
homing devices on board. They deliver drugs directly to the
disease-affected areas. Nanotherapeutics has been used
successfully to treat solid cell cancers such as lung cancer,
but this technique is new to the diabetes world. In cancer
therapy the nano messengers focus on the presence of leaky blood
ve