A study conducted at the University of Southampton has emphasized the role of nanotechnology in the health field.
Dr Antonios Kanaras, who serves as a physics lecturer of the University of Southampton, has demonstrated that the size and shape of nanoparticles are important to their interactions with endothelial cells. He and his team has studied the impact of the size and shape of gold nanoparticles when they are delivered to endothelial cells, which are the building blocks of angiogenesis, a key biological process that is a part of wound healing, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
The research team has reported its findings in a research paper titled ‘Interaction of Human Endothelial Cells with Gold Nanoparticles of Different Morphologies’ in the SMALL journal. In the paper, Kanaras classifies the kinds of nanomaterials that can be utilized for the endothelial cell treatment.
The researchers discovered that although hollow-sphere-shape gold nanoparticles are consumed in lower numbers when compared to rod-shape nanoparticles, their efficiency of lethality causing cell death during the application of laser hyperthermia is equivalent to that of rod-shape nanoparticles. Hence, hollow nanoparticles are ideal for biomedical applications, as they have the same impact but at a minimal dosage.
Dr Kanaras stated that the fact that a minute gold nanoparticle dosage is capable of inhibiting or activating angiogenic genes in endothelial cells is already known. Now, the findings reveal the impact of nanoparticle morphology to its interferences with endothelial cells, which is key to nanotechnological applications focusing on drug therapy and delivery.