By using a cylindrical-shaped carrier the researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine & School of Engineering and Applied Science were able to sustain delivery of the anticancer drug paclitaxel to an animal model of lung cancer ten times longer than that delivered on spherical-shaped carriers. These findings have implications for drug delivery as well as for better understanding cylinder-shaped viruses like Ebola and H5N1 influenza.
In the study, the research team used skinny cylindrical nanoparticles composed of synthetic polymers to deliver the anticancer drug paclitaxel to a human lung tumor tissue implanted in mice. The cylinders have diameters as small as 20 nm and lengths approaching the size of blood cells. The paclitaxel shrunk the tumors and, because the cylinders remained in circulation for up to one week after injection, they delivered a more effective dose, killing more cancer cells and shrinking the tumors to a much greater extent. Spherical nanoparticles typically only stay in circulation for a few hours.