Nanotubes–radioprotectors: 5000 times better
The US Department of Defense has authorized scientists from Rice University (Houston, Texas) and the Texas Medical Center to conduct 9-month trials of a new drug-a radioprotector based on carbon nanotubes designed to prevent the death of people from acute radiation sickness developing with massive radiation exposure.
More than half of patients with acute radiation sickness die within 30 days after exposure, and this happens not as a result of direct exposure to radioactive particles, but due to the massive death of rapidly multiplying cells of the hematopoietic and immune systems, digestive tract and other organs. The researchers say that ideally they would like to develop a drug, the introduction of which within 12 hours after exposure would prevent death from lethal doses of ionizing radiation to date.
The experimental drug "Nanovector Trojan Horse" (Nanovector Trojan Horses, NTH) is based on single-walled carbon nanotubes whose diameter does not exceed the diameter of the DNA helix. To create different versions of NTH, nanotubes were coated with two widespread food preservatives-antioxidants – butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated oxytoluene (butylated hydroxytoluene, BHT) – and their derivatives.
The ability of BHA and BHT to neutralize free radicals, which led to their use as preservatives, makes it possible to use them as drugs to eliminate and prevent biological effects that develop when exposed to ionizing radiation.
Ionizing radiation is any radioactive particles or types of energy that turn molecules or atoms into ions due to the imbalance between the number of protons and electrons. In a living organism, ionization often leads to the appearance of free radicals – highly active molecules that disrupt the flow of normal physiological mechanisms, which triggers a cascade of events leading to the destruction of the body within days or weeks after exposure. NTH class drugs are designed to stop this destructive biological cascade.
Preliminary testing conducted in July 2007 on mice that received a lethal dose of radiation demonstrated that the first generation of NTH-class drugs is 5,000 times more effective than the most effective of the existing drugs.
The authors also plan to test the ability of drugs to prevent the development of side effects of radiotherapy used to treat malignant diseases.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on EurekAlert materials.
31.01.2008