Nanoparticle decoy therapies and immune disorders / new research in PNAS

UC San Diego NanoEngineering professor Liangfang Zhang and a team of collaborators have a paper this week in PNAS entitled "Clearance of pathological antibodies using biomimetic nanoparticles"

PNAS described the work in their "In This Issue" section under the title Nanoparticle decoy therapies and autoimmune disorders. Excerpt below:

"Jonathan Copp et al. (pp. 13481–13486) tested whether nanoparticles could act as decoys to lure potentially destructive IgG antibodies away from healthy red blood cells in a mouse model of antibody-induced anemia. The authors coated polymer-based nanoparticles with red blood cell membrane, consisting of molecules that are targeted by anemia-causing antibodies."

Visit Liangfang Zhang's research group on the web: Nanomaterials & Nanomedicine Laboratory. These researchers are also affiliated with the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. 

Nanoparticle decoys protect red blood cells from destruction by macrophages. Photo credit: PNAS