Drug delivery

Researchers in Germany have developed a new method to treat viral infections by making traps. The team folded DNA into nano-capsules with specialized binding points inside them, which could grab hold of viruses and render them inert.

Getting traditionally administered drugs into the brain can be challenging, due to the body's protective blood-brain barrier. There may be new hope, however, in the form of a patch that gets shoved up the patient's nose.

Patients don't like getting needles, nor do clinicians like having to keep protein-based vaccines cold at all times. A new polymer wafer – which dissolves when placed under the tongue – could address both issues.

Although there are implants that gradually release medication at specific sites within the body, it can be difficult to control their rate of release. An experimental new device, however, dispenses drugs when externally activated by a shockwave.

Getting drugs into the brain is no easy feat, but the nose is one of the most direct routes. Now, UK researchers have developed a nasal spray hydrogel that lines the tissue in the nose to deliver a common Parkinson’s drug straight to the brain.

Nobody likes needles, but they’re a necessary evil. Microneedle patches are emerging as a painless alternative, and now researchers in Hong Kong have developed a new version of the tech that’s made of ice, for easier manufacture and use.

An oral pill would be much easier for diabetics than daily insulin injections. An experimental new method for packing insulin into capsules helps it survive the trip through the stomach to the bloodstream, and releases its payload only when needed.

A team at McGill University has come up with novel kind of suture that is based on human tendons, which enables it to not only heal wounds more effectively, but possibly even monitor their progress and be loaded with drugs to stave off infection.

Although various groups are working on nanoparticles that could be used for directed drug delivery via the bloodstream, most of those particles are made to "go with the flow." Now, however, researchers have created ones that can travel upstream.

Stanford scientists have developed a new hydrogel with a Velcro-like molecular structure, letting it last longer at body temperature. The hope is that it could be injected into a patient to deliver drugs over weeks or months as it slowly dissolves.

When taken orally or intravenously, medications typically travel throughout the body, producing unwanted side effects. MIT scientists are working on an alternative, that delivers both light and a light-activated drug directly to the target area.

Killing cancer cells isn’t too hard – the tricky part is doing so without harming healthy cells. Now researchers have developed nanoparticles that selectively release drugs inside tumors, while keeping them safely locked away when in healthy cells.