A system for precisely targeting "out-of-control" immune cells - without interfering with correctly functioning immune cells - has been developed using nanoparticles.
Nanoparticle research is currently described as being the most studied branch of science.
Nanoparticles - tiny objects that behave as a whole unit in terms of their transport and properties - have applications in all kinds of medical fields.
They have been used as delivery systems for drugs and genes, for detecting disease or proteins, in tissue engineering and for destroying tumors, among other things.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have now made nanoparticles from tiny pieces of protein that bind to a type of immune cell responsible for acute and chronic inflammatory responses.
'Pile-ups' of neutrophils contribute to inflammation
These cells - called neutrophils - should normally accumulate at an injury in a damaged blood vessel to prevent bacteria or bits of injured tissue from causing infection. But in chronic inflammation, these neutrophils pile up at the location of the injury, sticking to the walls of the blood vessel and damaging tissue.
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