Joined: 16 Mar 2004 |Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 2:40 pm Post
subject: Immune Responses Jolted into Action by Nanohorns |The
immune response triggered by carbon nanotube-like structures
could be harnessed to help treat infectious diseases and
cancers, say researchers. The way tiny structures like nanotubes
can trigger sometimes severe immune reactions has troubled
researchers trying to use them as vehicles to deliver drugs
inside the body in a targeted way. White blood cells can
efficiently detect and capture nanostructures, so much research
is focused on allowing nanotubes and similar structures to pass
unmolested in the body. But a French-Italian research team plans
to use nanohorns, a cone-shaped variety of carbon nanotubes, to
deliberately provoke the immune system. They think that the
usually unwelcome immune response could kick-start the body into
fighting a disease or cancer more effectively. To test their
theory, Alberto Bianco and Hélène Dumortier at the CNRS
Institute in Strasbourg, France, in collabor