Nano technology and hope for people with heart disease or other injuries.

SAN FRANCISCO: Scientists have created heart attacks or other wounds on mice but these mice have quickly recovered thanks to the help of Nano technology. If this new treatment can be applied to people, they will open hope for millions of patients with heart disease or other serious injuries.

Even at the cellular level, it takes a while for a wound to recover. The body must gather a large number of molecules called growth factors (Factors that stimulate cell growth. It may be a signal that makes cells synthesize certain types of receptors, to increased sensitivity and increased responsiveness to factors that push cells

Molecular peptide amphiphiles
(Photo: pubs.acs.org)

strong cell division activity, synthesize DNA) to immediately the injury area to help the wound recover. Samuel Stupp chemistry expert of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and his colleagues are thinking whether they can accelerate this process by applying nanotechnology (the technology industry involves setting designing, analyzing, manufacturing and applying structures, equipment and systems by controlling shapes, sizes on nanometer scale (nm, 1 nm = 10-9 m). are molecules called peptide amphiphiles, once injected into the body, these amphiphiles molecule self-assemble into nanoparticles (fiber fibers smaller than 100 nanometers) thin, long and spread in injury.

After learning how to create peptide amphiphiles, Stupp's group last year added eight amino acids, allowing the fibers to bind into a protein called heparin. Heparin will then combine to form growth factors, which stimulate blood vessel growth to help heal wounds naturally. When scientists inject solutions containing amphiphiles into the cornea or cornea of ​​a mouse - a common type of test for vascular development - amphiphiles form fibers. and these fiber fibers then stimulate the blood vessels to grow.

To find out whether these fibers can help animals recover from a true injury, Stupp teamed up with pharmacologist Jon Lomasney of Feinberg College of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. They create heart attacks that result in heart damage on 20 mice. Half an hour later, they injected half of the mice on a solution containing the amphiphiles that formed heparin protein. While the rest is either injected with only growth factors or no treatment at all.

Growth factors rapidly spread from the traumatized area in mice that were only injected with growth factor or untreated. But in mice that were injected with amphiphiles, the nanoparticles stranded in the injured area and continued there, attracting growth factors of the body to the injured area. A month later, scientists discovered the hearts of mice injected with amphiphiles that pumped blood well almost like healthy animals. In contrast, the hearts of the mice remained about 50% weaker than normal. Similar nanoparticles also rapidly heal wounds in rabbits according to a report by scientists Stupp at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) yesterday.

Chemist Steven Zimmerman of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who helped organize the symposium, said: "This technology seems to be great." Stupp scientist recently founded a company called Nanotope to help commercialize this technology.

Modified peptide amphiphiles molecules recombine into structures that can help the body heal wounds.

Accredited by: American Chemical Society