Nanoparticle drug delivery heats up

Although there is broad consensus on the properties of a good therapeutic nanoparticle-the ability to concentrate a drug and release it slowly at a specific site-achieving such targeted delivery has remained elusive. Now, a pair of papers presents a blueprint for optimizing tumor targeting with nanoparticles.

One paper, published in Cancer Cell, describes a nanoparticle consisting of a tumor-targeting peptide coupled to a drug that is internalized by the tumor upon binding of the peptide to its molecular target on the tumor surface.¹...