Highly read on pubs.acs.org in April

Drug-carrying nanoparticles that shrink and release their payload when irradiated with ultraviolet (UV) light could offer a way to get drugs deep into tissues and to unleash them on demand. This could be a valuable therapeutic tool for diseases such as cancer.

Currently available drug-delivering nanoparticles are at least 100 nanometres in diameter, which makes it difficult for them to squeeze into tumours. Daniel Kohane at the Children's Hospital Boston in Massachusetts and his colleagues made their particles out of organic molecules that switch conformation when hit with UV light. The nanoparticles were able to carry a number of drugs, including several used in cancer treatment, and shrank from roughly 150 to 40 nanometres under UV light. Irradiated particles released their drug cargo at a higher rate and diffused farther through both a collagen gel and corneal tissue than those not exposed to UV light.

J. Am. Chem. Soc. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja211888a (2012)