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Purdue University researchers have found a novel way to treat damaged nerve fibers in spinal cord injuries using nanomedicines. This could be done by injecting nanospheres into the blood after an accident.
The synthetic "copolymer micelles" are drug-delivery spheres about 60 nm in diameter, or approximately 100 times smaller than the diameter of a red blood cell.
Researchers have been working on how to administer drugs for treatment of cancer and other therapies using these spheres. Medications might be ported in the cores and carried to the damaged tissue.
The researchers have now revealed that the micelles themselves fix damaged axons, fibers that transmit electrical impulses in the spinal cord.
"That was a very surprising discovery. Micelles have been used for 30 years as drug-delivery vehicles in research, but no one has ever used them directly as a medicine," said Ji-Xin Cheng, an Associate Professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Chemistry.
An important characteristic of micelles is that they merge two types of polymers, one being hydrophobic and the other hydrophilic. This means they are either unable or able to mix with water. The hydrophobic core can be filled with drugs to treat disease.
The micelles might be used instead of more conservative agents like polyethylene glycol, which makes up the outer shell of the micelles. Studies showed that cores made of particular materials are better at restoring function to damaged axons, which are slender extensions of nerve cells.
In the future research an attempt will be made to know about the precise mechanisms that allow the micelles to restore function to damaged nerve cells.
The findings appear in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
