Comments on: Nanotherapeutic delivers clot-busting drugs directly to obstructed blood vessels

By: Sterling Bell

Sterling Bell — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:27:18 +0000

My grandmother had a stroke and I was wondering how long it took her to
have gotten this blood clot. Years? Months? Weeks?

How long does it take to form? She hasn’t been eating very healthy lately. Could that have caused it or too soon?

By: Alicia Nieva-Woodgate

Alicia Nieva-Woodgate — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 06:06:36 +0000

For those of us who suffer from blood clotting disorders, this is such a huge glimmer of hope! Research has not made many advances in this arena in the last 20 years – Only now are a series of drugs like Predaxa, Xeralto, etc. being used – but their main use is for arterial fibrillation… There’s hope for us yet!

By: Dayhawk

Dayhawk — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 03:32:16 +0000

I believe nano tech is the future but I know this is not only application it being used for. I am sure there those that i looking at how this could be use in war or aquaculture, and so on.

By: RobinSongs

RobinSongs — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:25:17 +0000

Food/drink/tobacco/drugs can be nano-manufactured in the home. They can also be used in VR.

By: Strangelet

Strangelet — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:14:06 +0000

To author: “often fatal bleeding”. Fatal bleeding is far from common with tPA at ~3%. Additionally they seem to be referring to partially obstructing clots which are a minority of such diseases. Complete obstruction is the rule (in strokes, pulmonary emboli) so I wonder if the same shear stresses are present at those blockages to promote the breakup.

To Phil: plaques are heterogenous and it is really the associated thrombus that can embolize and perhaps be addressed by this. Cholesterol emboli would be unaffected. And pardon my nerd tendencies but prophylactic has a “y”.

To vin: Many disease causing clots are unrelated to lifestyle choices (dissection, cardioembolism), although I am hardly defending those industries.

By: Phil Osborn

Phil Osborn — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:20:11 +0000

This opens the door for a lot more of the same. Consider that many people are at high continuous risk due to the potential for these plaques to break up and travel to the heart, lungs or brain. Simply having a desk job and sitting for long periods puts one at risk. So, why wait for problems? Especially for high-risk individuals, this could be done continuously as a prophilactic measure, meaning that at all times the person would have these nanoparticles circulating, which introduces the question of what else they might be good for? Why restrict the use to this one application – leading to real nanotech robots constantly circulating in one’s bloodstream…

By: Vin

Vin — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 00:48:34 +0000

lol, the geek in me says cool, the humanist says wtg, but the cynic in me observes its great news for the food/drink/tobacco/drug industry that variously hook people onto unbalanced food and pernicious drugs that promote these diseases in the first place: now the junkies can live even longer without the root cause of their afflictions treated, and plough even more profit into the industries pockets?

By: Bri

Bri — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 23:37:38 +0000

Just think. If they shrink a cell phone, to the size of a red blood cell, that would be a killer app. Well maybe not a killer, just killer. Just kidding!

By: spikosauropod

spikosauropod — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:47:30 +0000

Another Wow!

If they perfect this, it will change everyone’s life.