Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Delivering the goods:carbon nanotubesThe potential of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as drug-carriersystems and sensors for diagnosis and therapy at a cellularlevel is what the Carbio team set out to explore. The idea:the hollow tubes, which can be constructed with one, two ormore walls, could be fi lled with drugs, sensors or even heatingelements and then transport their load directly to where theyare needed in the human body.A dangerous but precious cargoProject coordinator Dr Rüdiger Klingeler of the Leibniz Institute forSolid State and Materials Research (IFW) in Dresden, Germany,is enthusiastic about the project and its results. ‘Studies of CNTinteraction with biological environments provide the basis forapplying the tubes for imaging, sensing and cancer treatment,’he says. ‘Our work packages focus on the synthesis of CNTs,biocompatibility and bioactivity, imaging and sensing, as wellas hyperthermia and medical studies.’Carbio focuses on targeted anti-tumour therapy. Current cancertherapies are not targeted, which means that they often affecthealthy tissues and cause side effects for patients. Employingbiocompatible CNTs could effectively change that: scientistswould wrap the tubes around their miniature cargo and thewrapping would stay in place until the whole package reachesits destination. The contents of the package would then bereleased and allowed to get to work where they are needed,there and only there.But how can doctors stop the nanotubes from poisoning thepatient? The Carbio researchers solved that particular problem byadding another layer to the wrap – a layer of DNA and ribonucleicacid (RNA) around the CNTs to make them biocompatible.It’s a wrap!The use of carbon-wrapped nanocontainers has numerousadvantages for medical applications. First, there are a numberof materials that might be toxic but which will help bring atumour under control or destroy it. The protective carbon shellwould mean that this kind of material could be used moreeffectively in therapy. Second, the outer shell of CNTs can21