They sound like the fantasies of fiction writers, but they are among the discoveries being presented at Nano Israel 2010, a nanotech conference in Tel Aviv that has attracted researchers from across the science world, united by their work with the very, very small.
The 1,500 participants at the meeting include chemists, physicists and medical researchers, all working with tiny structures around the thickness of a cell wall.
Dan Peer, a professor at Tel Aviv University, is trying to find out how to more effectively target cancer and the inflammation associated with diseases like multiple sclerosis by better directing toxic treatments like chemotherapy. “Sometimes the drug is there, but it doesn’t operate in a targeted manner,” he said.
In such cases, scientists are trying to find ways to build “GPS systems” into the drugs so they travel directly to malignant cells or inflammation.
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