Drug Delivery System from Fusion Technology of Living and Non-Living Cells

Organic substance encapsulated within non-organic substance (image is credited medindia.net)

Scientists and researchers have successfully joined living and non-living cells for the first time, and their fusion shows promising result due to its biological mechanism. This discovery could lead to new way for modern applications.

The system, designed by a team of Imperial College London, is formed by encapsulating biological cells within an artificial cell. So, imagine your living cell is coated or covered by handmade material. And both the living cells and the materials are connected to each other so that they can work together. Interestingly, by utilizing this system, the researchers could harness the natural abilities of the cells in order to process chemicals without getting damaged by the environment.

This technology can be applied to many applications including batteries powered by photosynthesis mechanisms, synthesising the drugs inside human body, and the most interesting thing is they can prevent themselves from harsh conditions. As a result, our life expectancy due to the usefulness is decreasing. But, how the living cells could work together with the artificial materials since the body realizes the handmade materials are an alien thing? This could trigger the autoimmune system!

The answer lies on the composition of the artificial cells which contains the enzymes that can work in concert with the biological cell to produce new chemical substances. It means, the body recognize there is new material however it is not considered as dangerous, in contrast, it is a friendly friend.

To create the scheme, the team used micro fluids, directing liquids through small channels. Using fill with tears and grease, which figure out not mix, they were able to promote to droplets of a defined size with the purpose of enclosed the biological cells and enzymes. They so therefore functional an artificial coating to the droplets to provide protection, creating a mock cell natural environment. They tested for the period of the experiments, and the mock cell systems produced a fluorescent element with the purpose of permissible the researchers to confirm all was working as predictable.

To get better the functionality of these cell systems, the after that step is to engineer the mock coating to con more like a biological covering, but with special functions. For case in point, if the covering might be fictional to exposed and make available the chemicals resulted contained by simply in response to given signals, they might be used to carry drugs to given areas of the body. This would be nifty in support of illustration in cancer dealing to make available under attack drugs simply next to the position of a tumor, falling the margin sound effects. This will befall promising solution in the coming.