Question: could your micro-devices use Nano-technology to distribute drugs to cancer cells and do you think that this technology could be applied to other things as well.

Tatiana Trantidou answered on 26 Jun 2015:

Hi Keiser,

good question! In fact, I use Nano-fabrication technology to build my micro-devices in the lab. These devices are able to make tiny droplets (with a diameter much smaller than the width of a single hair) and put a particular drug in there. The future goal of my study is to place a drug inside these droplets that will be able to get its way out only when the droplets comes close to cancer cells. The droplets will travel through the body with the drug inside. When they reach closer to cancer cells, they will detect a specific protein that is produced by these cancer cells. This will be the signal for the droplets to burst and get the drug out.
If this technology works nicely, it can be used with many different things. For example, we can put insulin in these droplets and give them to people who suffer from type I diabetes. We can put lactase in them (an enzyme that helps us digest dairy products) and give them to people who are lactose intolerant (people who cannot eat dairy products because they cannot metabolise the lactose that’s in these).