Twenty-sided therapy

A University of Washington team has designed an array of icosahedral nanoparticles that can carry large amounts of molecular cargo both inside and on their surfaces, producing a versatility that could lay a foundation for programmable vaccine and drug delivery platforms.

By using proteins to create stable, self-assembling structures, the researchers departed from the standard strategy of using lipids or branched polymers - which produce particles with minimal intrinsic biological activity. ...