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Nanoparticles on the move for medicine
Peer Fischer outlines the prospects for creating “nanoswimmers” that can be steered through the body to deliver drugs directly to their targets Molecules don’t move very fast on their own. If they had to rely solely on diffusion – a slow and inefficient process linked to the Brownian motion of small particles and molecules in solution – then a protein molecule, for instance, would take around three weeks to travel a single centimetre down a nerve fibre. This is why active transport mechanisms exist in cells and in the human body: without them, all the processes of life would happen at a pace that would make snails look speedy.
@article{2018fischer, title = {Nanoparticles on the move for medicine}, journal = {Physics World Focus on Nanotechnology}, abstract = {Peer Fischer outlines the prospects for creating “nanoswimmers” that can be steered through the body to deliver drugs directly to their targets Molecules don’t move very fast on their own. If they had to rely solely on diffusion – a slow and inefficient process linked to the Brownian motion of small particles and molecules in solution – then a protein molecule, for instance, would take around three weeks to travel a single centimetre down a nerve fibre. This is why active transport mechanisms exist in cells and in the human body: without them, all the processes of life would happen at a pace that would make snails look speedy.}, pages = {26028}, editors = {Margaret Harris}, publisher = {IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors}, month = apr, year = {2018}, slug = {physics-world-focus}, author = {Fischer, Peer}, url = {http://live.iop-pp01.agh.sleek.net/physicsworld/reader/#!edition/editions_nano_2018/article/page-26018}, month_numeric = {4} }