Duke University bioengineers have developed a simple, inexpensive method for loading cancer drug payloads into nanoscale delivery vehicles and demonstrated in animal models that this delivery system can eliminate tumors after a single treatment.

The system uses an E. coli bacterium that have been genetically altered to produce a chimeric polypeptide. When that molecule combines with a drug in a container, they self-assemble into a water-soluble nanoparticle of about 50 nanometers, making them ideal for cancer therapy.