SILK AND DIAMONDS: NEW APPLICATIONS IN MEDICINE
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Silk and diamonds are not only used to make clothes and precious jewels. For some time, in fact, are used by some researchers to develop a new technique for biological imaging
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The new particles , only tens of nanometers, made of diamonds and covered in silk can be injected into the body's cells , and due to their brilliance if affected by a particular type of light, allowing biologists to see what happens inside of cells and therefore to better understand the cellular behavior , such as the cells react to a new drug .
A team of researchers from Australia and the United States describes this new hybrid material in an article published in the journal Biomedical Optics Express.
" Nanodiamonds similar to those in this study had been previously explored for their possible medical uses , but this is the first time that silk is used with nanodiamonds in the realization of a hybrid material ," said Asma Khalid University Melbourne, which is the main author of the study . The idea of covering the nanodiamonds with silk comes from the fact that it is transparent, flexible, compatible with the biological tissue and biodegradable , so as to leave no harmful byproducts within the body. In the body silk remains transparent, which means that it does not block the glare of the nanodiamonds . Not only preserves the optical properties of nanodiamonds , but improves their brightness from two to four times.
In future, these nanodiamonds could help researchers to fight infections in targeted areas of the body. A thin film of nanodiamonds , drug carriers , could be implanted directly into an infected area, while minimizing patient exposure to drugs. The silk could even degrade at a controlled rate , which would allow doctors to monitor the release of drugs .
Source Worldhealth
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