New Nanoparticle Therapies Target Two Major Killers
6th April 2025
RNA vaccines packaged in tiny fatty containers called nanoparticles saved tens of millions from COVID-19. Now, researchers are trying to use similar nanoparticles to fight two other major killers, respiratory failure caused by lung infections such as flu and the atherosclerosis that leads to heart attacks and strokes. In both conditions, the endothelial cells that line blood vessels malfunction, turning down key genes. New research presented at the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting here this week shows that nanoparticles carrying a payload of RNA can ramp the genes back up, promising to address the diseases at their root.
Nanoparticles are a familiar tool in medicine, but the scheme to use them to treat endothelial cells is “excellent work,” says Robert Langer, a nanoparticle therapy pioneer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Won Hyuk Suh, a biomaterials expert at the University of New Hampshire who organized the scientific session at the ACS meeting, notes that the findings are preliminary but calls them “very interesting and promising.” They were posted on the bioRxiv preprint server in January.
Atherosclerosis and respiratory failure due to infections such as flu might seem to have little in common. But both involve inflammation of endothelial cells. In the case of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), the inflammation causes endothelial cells in capillaries adjacent to the lung’s tiny air sacs, or alveoli, to reduce levels of KLF2, a protein “transcription factor” that helps regulate a series of other genes needed for healthy cell function. As a result, these capillaries become porous, leaking fluid into the alveoli, which prevents oxygen from diffusing into the blood, often killing patients.