Discovery at Houston Methodist, Rice will impact design of drug delivery systems at the molecular level
A discovery by researchers at Houston Methodist Research Institute and Rice University could impact drug delivery systems, water filtration and energy production.
The team investigating how drug molecules in a solution travel through a nanofluidic membrane found that the molecules and membrane do not interact as expected.
(The membranes) were designed by Alessandro Grattoni, chairman of the Department of Nanomedicine at Houston Methodist; Mauro Ferrari, Methodist president and CEO; and colleagues. They were part of the research team, which also included Rice’s Alberto Pimpinelli, an adjunct lecturer in materials science and nanoengineering and executive director of the university’s Smalley-Curl Institute.
The findings are described in Nature Communications, "Unexpected behaviors in molecular transport through size-controlled nanochannels down to the ultra-nanoscale."