Removing the positive charge on nanoparticles can improve their chemotherapeutic efficiency, say investigators at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Research presented in March at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Montreal showed that without the positive charge, the drug-carrying nanoparticles are less likely to be taken up by normal cells and more likely to be taken up by cancer cells.
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"That way we can direct them to tumor cells and decrease the [clinical] side effects," says Almut Mecke, a Michigan doctoral student in biological physics.
