Nanorobot can kill hepatitis C virus

Recently, researchers at the University of Florida has created a nanorobot that can attack virus replication mechanism of hepatitis C. Robot works at the cellular level, such as micro-particles with the ability to destroy the reproductive mechanisms of disease-associated protein of hepatitis C. Worldwide there are about 170 million people suffer from this virus. In the study by University of Florida, hepatitis C virus is killed by a type of particle called nanozyme. Nanozyme surface is composed of two main biological components. The first is an enzyme that helps destroy the mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) - RNA to encrypt information and carry information from DNA to make the position of protein synthesis. The rest is the intelligence of the system - a short nucleic acid segments of length less than 100 nucleotides (DNA oligonucleotides) can identify the material and instructions for destroying enzyme transport mechanism of protein code. Currently, therapy for patients with hepatitis C is to use a combination of two drugs Interferon and Ribavirin, but the success rate of just under 50%. The combination of two medicine can be debilitating for patients, even some patients were forced to stop treatment due to anemia, anorexia and fatigue. Meanwhile, the aforementioned nano therapy can eliminate the problems associated with side effects because it does not activate resistance mechanisms of the body, thereby minimizing the possibility of side effects. In addition, not only hepatitis C treatment, the team leader - Dr. Chen Liu said the technology also many potential applications by nanorobot that can attack any gene such as cancer or other diseases others died. "Technology opens the door to many new areas and we can experiment more. We are very excited about this discovery," Liu said. The nanoparticle technology is already being used in medical therapy, especially in the work of genetic testing and help to identify genetic factors of many diseases. The researchers said they could open up a new era in medicine by the nanorobot can penetrate into infected cells, attack the infection process, while no effect on cells healthy. In addition, nano therapy can be applied in pill form. Details of the research of Professor Chen Liu and his colleagues at the University of Florida has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. By: Gizmag ...