Is Nanotechnology the future of drug therapy?
April 11, 2007 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Nanomaterials. Manmade molecular sized particles just a little smaller than a DNA double helix, that assemble themselves by interacting in similar ways that a hydrogen bond is formed.
These uber-minute particles may be an answer to treating some of the most difficult viral diseases to invade man – HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, herpes simplex, influenza and Asian bird flu.
Nanoviricidies Inc, a company that specializes in developing targeted anti-viral therapies, has just signed with Walter Reed Army Institute in creating a drug to treat dengue fever.
Dengue fever is a flu-like illness that causes high fever, rash, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, and often-severe muscle and joint pain. Nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite are common. It can last up to 10 days, but complete recovery can take as long as a month.
In some cases, dengue progresses to a hemorrhagic fever that is fatal 5 percent of the time in children and young adults. Being mostquito-borne, it is more common in the tropics but invades the US with about a 100 cases per year from travelers returning from overseas.
Tags: nanotechnology, dengue, nanoviricides, flu, virus, medicine, health
this would be a great break through.
still, we should be careful with it.