Fat-eating nanoparticles
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed nanoparticles that can deliver antiobesity drugs directly to fat tissue. Overweight mice treated with these nanoparticles lost 10 percent of their body weight over 25 days, without showing any negative side effects.
The transport mechanism of the nanoparticles is controlled by target molecules on the surface of the nanoparticles. These target molecules bind to the adipose tissue and remain there until the drug, which is transported in the inside of the nanoparticle, is released. The drugs work by transforming white adipose tissue, which is made of fat-storing cells, into brown adipose tissue, which burns fat. These drugs, which are not FDA-approved to treat obesity, are not new, but the research team developed a new way to deliver them so that they accumulate in fatty tissues, helping to avoid unwanted side effects in other parts of the body.
Source: Anne Trafton, MIT