Scientists Use Natural Clot-Producing Mechanisms To Deliver Targeted Medicine.

Bloomberg News  (7/6, Tirrell) reports, "Scientists found a way to use the body's natural clot-producing mechanisms to deliver targeted medicine in a study that may have implications for treatments of heart attacks and stroke." This "delivery system, called shear-activated nanotherapeutics, is a bundle of tiny drug-coated particles that travel together until they reach the obstruction, when...shear stress causes them to break apart and attack clots." The research, "done in mice, used an approved clot-targeting therapy called tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, and found that the system allowed for use of less than one-fiftieth the normal dose to dissolve clots...said" Donald Ingber, an author of the study, which was published in Science.