Scientists are developing a method that detects diseased tissue with sounding liposomes
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Soon doctors will be able to hear not only wheezing in the lungs: British scientists are developing a method that will detect diseased tissues in the body using sounding liposomes.
Researchers from Nottingham University are working on a very innovative method that will in the future allow monitoring the movement of drugs in our body and with which it will be possible to pinpoint the localization of the disease - for example, inflammation or cancer. Until now, when we drink medicine, neither we nor doctors know exactly how it is distributed throughout the body. Accordingly, many diagnostic methods also sin inaccuracy; it is difficult to recognize in time, for example, a cancerous metastasis without time-consuming and sometimes painful methods of analysis for the patient. All problems of this kind can be solved in one fell swoop, the researchers believe, if in a literal sense to force the body of a person to speak.
The method of scientists takes as a basis liposomal vesicles - membrane vesicles, limited from the environment by a double layer of lipid molecules. These structures are already used in modern biology and medicine to facilitate the delivery of medicinal and other substances to living cells. But in this case, researchers propose to follow the travel of liposomes through the body with the help of special microphones.
Microphones should capture sound vibrations emitted by liposomes. But how will these membrane vesicles find their voice? To do this, scientists want to use the technique used for magnetic resonance imaging. The molecules that make up the membrane shell are folded asymmetrically in it, so the liposome has its own electrical charge. Therefore, in the presence of an electromagnetic field, this charge will cause the molecular complex to oscillate - like a diffuser in a loudspeaker. The resulting sound waves will be picked up by the microphone.
In order for the signal to be sufficiently intelligible, the researchers plan, on the one hand, to increase the asymmetry of the liposome membranes, so that they talk "louder" and, on the other hand, work on the sensitivity of the microphone (it is clear that the sound-receiving device in this case must be hypersensitive). The future of the method is seen by its authors as follows. The liposome is supplied with some molecule that will allow it to take a trace, say, a cancerous tumor, after which it is triggered into the body. After a lot of liposomes find a cancerous focus, their voice in the electromagnetic field becomes more or less audible. Similarly, you can follow, for example, the travel of some medicine, for its distribution throughout the body. In a sense, this is similar to the way a woodpecker searches for the bark of an insect tree - according to the sound of their swarming.
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