{"id":123893,"date":"2021-06-16T21:23:01","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T04:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/genetically-engineered-nanoparticle-delivers-dexamethasone-directly-to-inflamed-lungs"},"modified":"2021-06-16T21:23:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T04:23:01","slug":"genetically-engineered-nanoparticle-delivers-dexamethasone-directly-to-inflamed-lungs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/genetically-engineered-nanoparticle-delivers-dexamethasone-directly-to-inflamed-lungs","title":{"rendered":"Genetically engineered nanoparticle delivers dexamethasone directly to inflamed lungs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/genetically-engineered-nanoparticle-delivers-dexamethasone-directly-to-inflamed-lungs3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed immune cell-mimicking nanoparticles that target inflammation in the lungs and deliver drugs directly where they\u2019re needed. As a proof of concept, the researchers filled the nanoparticles with the drug dexamethasone and administered them to mice with inflamed lung tissue. Inflammation was completely treated in mice given the nanoparticles, at a drug concentration where standard delivery methods did not have any efficacy.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers reported their findings in <i>Science Advances<\/i> on June 16.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s special about these <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nanoparticles\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nanoparticles<\/a> is that they are coated in a cell membrane that\u2019s been genetically engineered to look for and bind to inflamed <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/lung+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">lung cells<\/a>. They are the latest in the line of so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobsschool.ucsd.edu\/nanosponge\">cell membrane-coated nanoparticles<\/a> that have been developed by the lab of UC San Diego nanoengineering professor Liangfang Zhang. His lab has previously used cell membrane-coated nanoparticles to absorb toxins produced by MRSA; treat sepsis; and train the immune system to fight cancer. But while these previous cell membranes were naturally derived from the body\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cells<\/a>, the cell membranes used to coat this dexamethasone-filled nanoparticle were not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed immune cell-mimicking nanoparticles that target inflammation in the lungs and deliver drugs directly where they\u2019re needed. As a proof of concept, the researchers filled the nanoparticles with the drug dexamethasone and administered them to mice with inflamed lung tissue. Inflammation was completely treated in mice [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,38,412,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-engineering","category-genetics","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123893","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\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}