Carbon nanotubes sneak drugs past gatekeeper proteins

Getting drugs past cell gatekeepers whose job it is to keep out harmful substances is one of the major hurdles of drug delivery. To get treatments past one P-glycoprotein on the cell's surface, researchers in Germany have developed nanoparticles made of carbon that can overcome this type of drug resistance, according to a study published in the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design. Using computer models, the scientists demonstrated that these carbon nanotubes bypass the proteins undetected by not "docking" onto their defense mechanisms. Story | Study