Gold nanoparticles to help better delivery of drugs, reduce drug resistance

2009
Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, June 15: Gold does not just glitter, it also delivers
medicines effectively and solves the problem of drug resistance for
various diseases.

Using gold nanoparticles, a group of scientists has devised an
innovative method of delivering antibiotics, overcoming the problem of
drug side-effects. The new technology will also solve the problem of
multi-drug resistant micro-organism, which have developed immunity
against certain drugs because of their prolonged and excessive use.

Dr Pankaj Poddar, who led the team of scientists at the Pune-based
National Chemical Laboratory, told this correspondent that the idea of
"dressing up or capping nanoparticles with antibiotics had worked
well".

The team used cephalexin, a broad-spectrum betalactam antibiotic, for
the in situ reduction and capping of gold nanoparticles. According to
Dr Pankaj, gold nanoparticles also helped in effective delivery of the
medicine.

"Many diseases have become resistant to certain drugs. This makes
things complicated for health planners and doctors. We have to
overcome the problem of drug resistance to make the medicine work
effectively. Gold nanoparticles have been successful on certain drugs.
We are continuing with the research on some more medicines," he said.

The NCL study will serve as an excellent model system to relook at the
growth of nanocrystals in solution phase. The antibiotics
capped gold nanoparticles can be further used in biomedical
applications and cellular biology, where the desired target molecule can
be tagged on the surface of the drug.