{"id":118053,"date":"2021-01-04T19:23:57","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T03:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/mit-implant-delivers-drugs-and-the-light-that-activates-them"},"modified":"2021-01-04T19:23:57","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T03:23:57","slug":"mit-implant-delivers-drugs-and-the-light-that-activates-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/mit-implant-delivers-drugs-and-the-light-that-activates-them","title":{"rendered":"MIT implant delivers drugs and the light that activates them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mit-implant-delivers-drugs-and-the-light-that-activates-them.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When taken orally or intravenously, medications typically travel throughout the body, producing unwanted side effects. MIT scientists are working on an alternative, that delivers both light and a light-activated drug directly to the target area.<\/p>\n<p>So-called \u201cphotoswitchable\u201d drugs contain light-sensitive molecules that essentially switch the drug on when exposed to a flash of light. This means that a pharmaceutical could remain inactive when moving through the bloodstream or digestive tract, only becoming active once it reached the place it was needed. As a result, few if any side effects would occur.<\/p>\n<p>That said, how could a flash of light be delivered precisely to the target area, right when the drug was present at that location? Well, that\u2019s where a device developed by the MIT researchers comes into play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When taken orally or intravenously, medications typically travel throughout the body, producing unwanted side effects. MIT scientists are working on an alternative, that delivers both light and a light-activated drug directly to the target area. So-called \u201cphotoswitchable\u201d drugs contain light-sensitive molecules that essentially switch the drug on when exposed to a flash of light. This [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}