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DNA ‘cage’ holding a payload of drugs set to begin clinical trial soon

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Ido Bachelet, who was previously at Harvard’s Wyss Institute in Boston, Massachusetts and Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, intends to treat a patient who has been given six months to live. The patient is set to receive an injection of DNA nanocages designed to interact with and destroy leukemia cells without damaging healthy tissue. Speaking in December, he said: ‘Judging from what we saw in our tests, within a month that person is going to recover.

DNA nanocages can be programmed to independently recognize target cells and deliver payloads, such as cancer drugs, to these cells.

George Church, who is involved in the research at the Wyss Institute explained the idea of the microscopic robots is to make a ‘cage’ that protects a fragile or toxic payload and ‘only releases it at the right moment.’

These nanostructures are built upon a single strand of DNA which is combined with short synthetic strands of DNA designed by the experts.  When mixed together, they self-assemble into a desired shape, which in this case looks a little like a barrel.

Dr Bachelet said: ‘The nanorobot we designed actually looks like an open-ended barrel, or clamshell that has two halves linked together by flexible DNA hinges and the entire structure is held shut by latches that are DNA double helixes.’

A complementary piece of DNA is attached to a payload, which enables it to bind to the inside of the biological barrel. The double helixes stay closed until specific molecules or proteins on the surface of cancer cells act as a ‘key’ to open the ‘barrel’ so the payload can be deployed.

‘The nanorobot is capable of recognizing a small population of target cells within a large healthy population,’ Dr Bachelet continued.

‘While all cells share the same drug target that we want to attack, only those target cells that express the proper set of keys open the nanorobot and therefore only they will be attacked by the nanorobot and by the drug.’

The team has tested its technique in animals as well as cell cultures and said the ‘nanorobot attacked these [targets] with almost zero collateral damage.’ The method has many advantages over invasive surgery and blasts of drugs, which can be ‘as painful and damaging to the body as the disease itself,’ the team added.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

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