Scientists have developed a new type of "good cholesterol" that could one day deliver drugs to where they are needed in the body to treat heart disease.
High-density lipoprotein (HDL) is a natural nanoparticle that carries cholesterol throughout the body.
Since it acts like a scavenger, collecting cholesterol and taking it to the liver for breakdown, HDL has emerged from being simply a marker for cardiovascular disease to being a therapeutic agent.
Clinical trials are testing its potential to combat atherosclerosis, the build-up of plaques in blood vessels that can lead to heart attacks or strokes.
Scientists are also exploring new ways to use it for drug delivery. But HDL is complex and comes in many varieties.
It takes several labour-intensive steps to get a uniform collection of these particles with current methods, which aren't easily scaled up for clinical applications.
In a new study, published in the journal ACS Nano, researchers devised a new and improved method for making HDL-like particles.
The scientists showed that microfluidics - the same technology that enabled the invention of inkjet printers - allowed them to make the new material that looks and acts like HDL in a single, rapid step.
Not only does this material offer a possible, easy new way to treat cardiovascular disease, but the researchers also attached drug compounds, as well as dyes and nanocrystals used in medical imaging (such as those used for MRIs and CT scans), to the particles.
