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Towards an in vivo biologically inspired nanofactory

Nature Nanotechnology volume 2, pages 3–7 (2007)Cite this article

Nanotechnology is having a major impact on medicine and the treatment of disease, notably in imaging and targeted drug delivery. It may, however, be possible to go even further and design 'pseudo-cell' nanofactories that work with molecules already in the body to fight disease.

Current medical treatment for many diseases, including cancer and heart disease, involves drugs being manufactured in pharmaceutical factories and then administered to patients through a range of delivery mechanisms that include intravenous injections, timed release from implants, and oral ingestion. There is much research into targeted drug delivery to specific locations with controlled release schemes because this approach ensures that the drug goes where it is intended, which reduces unwanted side effects and may be particularly important for highly localized diseases such as certain cancers (for example, prostate, breast, lung). There is, however, a more radical approach that draws its inspiration from the ability of the human body to self-medicate by actively adapting molecular production in response to its intrinsic biochemistry. This new approach proposes that molecular machinery could, in principle, be introduced into the body to convert pre-existing materials into therapeutic compounds, or to change molecules that a patient is unable to process, owing to some medical condition, into other compounds that the body can process. In this article we discuss the potential applications of nanotechnology to human health and the life sciences, and then propose a concept for a 'pseudo-cell factory' that might enable a high-impact new approach to medicine.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: Schematic of the encapsulation of cells18.
Figure 3: Liposomes formed by thin lipid film organization.
Figure 4: One approach for the transport in an in vivo biological nanofactory is to create channels such as α-haemolysin that span across a membrane.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the W. M. Keck Foundation and the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative “Designing Nanostructures at the Interface between Biomedical and Physical Systems”. This is a 15-year effort to stimulate interdisciplinary research and to enhance communication among researchers, funding agencies, universities and the general public.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, and Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 15213, Philadelphia, USA

    Philip R. LeDuc

  2. Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, 77251, Texas, USA

    Michael S. Wong

  3. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 61801, Illinois, USA

    Placid M. Ferreira

  4. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, 29634, South Carolina, USA

    Richard E. Groff

  5. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 11724, USA

    Kiryn Haslinger

  6. Division of Molecular Medicine, Wadsworth Center, Albany, 12201, New York, USA

    Michael P. Koonce

  7. Departments of Chemical, Biomedical, and Materials Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, 07030, New Jersey, USA

    Woo Y. Lee

  8. CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    J. Christopher Love

  9. Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Pharmacology, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, 92093, California, USA

    J. Andrew McCammon

  10. Center for Chemical Toxicology Research and Pharmacokinetics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 27606, North Carolina, USA

    Nancy A. Monteiro-Riviere

  11. Department of Chemistry, The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, 01003, Massachusetts, USA

    Vincent M. Rotello

  12. Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Gary W. Rubloff

  13. Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Robert Westervelt

  14. School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, 30332, Georgia, USA

    Minami Yoda

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  1. Philip R. LeDuc
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Correspondence to Philip R. LeDuc or Michael S. Wong.

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LeDuc, P., Wong, M., Ferreira, P. et al. Towards an in vivo biologically inspired nanofactory. Nature Nanotech 2, 3–7 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2006.180

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