Ecobreves – MEXICO: Medications via Nanoparticles

By - - and IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

MEXICO CITY, Mar 29 2009 (IPS) - Researchers in Mexico have encapsulated pharmaceuticals in microscopic nanoparticles, allowing the medications to be delivered with greater precision to the ill part of the body, without the secondary effects of conventional therapies. The nanoparticles with medications, known as aquasomes, promise more accurate dosage and greater efficiency of medications, Irma Rojas, a scientist with the Autonomous Metropolitan University in the Mexican capital, told Tierramérica.

Rojas and her team are aquasome pioneers in Mexico. They are currently testing the technique with indometacine, an anti-inflammatory that is used to treat eye diseases.

Various medications, as well as proteins synthesized through biotechnology and genes can be encapsulated in aquasomes, a technique developed by Nir Kossovsky, at the University of California, said Rojas.