The body’s immune system exists to identify and destroy
foreign objects, whether they are bacteria, viruses, flecks of dirt or
splinters. Unfortunately, nanoparticles designed to deliver drugs, and
implanted devices like pacemakers or artificial joints, are just as foreign and
subject to the same response.
Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of
Engineering and Applied Science and Penn’s Institute for Translational Medicine
and Therapeutics have figured out a way to provide a “passport” for such
therapeutic devices, enabling them to get past the body’s security system.