Robert Pazik and Constanze Lamprecht are two young researchers who separately work on methods of using nanoparticles as multifunctional drug delivery systems for diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Pazik, who works in chemistry at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science in Uppsala, uses nanoparticles that can be coated with therapeutic drug plus other chemicals that allows the particle to be anchored to a specific site or organ. Lamprecht, a physicist at the University of Linz in Austria, works with carbon nanotubes that can similarly be coated in targeting or therapeutic chemicals. Therapeutic drugs can also be inserted into the nanotubes. Pazik and Lamprecht also discuss the use of magnetic nanoparticle coatings that, when combined with a targeting material, can allow very selective heat treatment of tumor cell sites that also can be reactivated if cancer growth returns.
Pazik and Lamprecht were interviewed at the recent ICACC’10 meeting in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Their work is an example of nanophase drug delivery approaches, a topic that will be the cover story for the March issue of the Bulletin of The American Ceramic Society.
Run time: 9 minutes