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Quantum dot drugs
Attach a quantum dot to every FDA drug, then test to find any that work better | |
Quantum dots are sometimes around 1 nanometer, and
eentsy molecule drugs like the longevity drug rapamycin
are about 1-2 picometers wide, hundreds of times
eentsier. Attaching a drug to a quantum dot would
strongly change its charge, electron distribution and
orbital shapes. Some of the time
this would make the
drug more effective, especially with quantum dots
engineered to be purpose specific. As a commercial
incentive all FDA drugs could be reengineered and
repatented this way.
It could be possible to further tune the energetics of the
new drug molecule-dots. Quantum dots absorb energy at
particular frequencies of light and emit photons, if they
can be engineered to respond to infrared photons at the
frequency a well or unwell body produces then the power
range they influence the drug molecule with would be
wider and even more customizable.
Quantum dot drugs possibly have completely different
tissue and cytotype localizations than source drugs
assisting with beneficial localization to particular
structures and neurons in the brain and for localizing
anticancer drugs. Another localization opportunity if the
quantum dots respond to IR is the specific temperatures
between tissues, or warmth at an infection site or a fever.
10-30% of quantum dots with a peptide attached to them reach the cytoplasm
https://pubs.acs.or...s/10.1021/nn900663r
[beanangel, Mar 16 2020]
Drug Antibody Conjugation
https://en.wikipedi...body-drug_conjugate
[bs0u0155, Mar 16 2020]
[link]
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I just had a pang of missing Max. This is a complicated
idea beany, like many of your ideas, and in the past I've
always gone directly to Max's question, evaluation or
dismissive joke in the annotations to get his summary. |
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My next move would be to go to 8's annotation. A thumb's
down from Max and 8 and I'd move on. Approval from one
and I'd read the idea carefully until I got what it was
about. In the event of a rare disagreement between the
two I'd get really interested. |
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OK 8, you're my main wingman now. (Just uh.. stay off my
6.) Does this make any sense? |
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Oh dear. It would take me at least an hour of Googling to
even start to understand this, and it's too late in the
evening. |
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I thought it was just me, thanks wags, for helping me out
here. |
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OK, working backwards from the end, here is my amateur's
understanding: |
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1. Some medical conditions, including cancers and neurological
conditions, can be treated by delivering certain molecules to
bind to certain very specific other molecules in the diseased or
damaged tissue. |
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2. Quantum dots can communicate with their surroundings both
by sending and receiving photons, the implication being that
incoming photons can modulate their behaviour in some way.
(I'm not sure what the outgoing photons are doing for us, except
perhaps helping us to locate the fiddly little things if we drop
one). |
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3. The idea is to use quantum dots to deliver drugs to the sites
where they're needed. |
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Please confirm [beany], whether that is correct as far as it goes. |
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Now, what is *not* clear to me: |
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A) Are you proposing to use the dots to move the drugs to their
targets, or only to change the behaviour of the drugs when they
arrive? |
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B) Assuming the latter, are you expecting the dots (i) to change
the orientation of the drug molecules so as to promote
successful binding, (ii) to catalyse a chemical reaction between
drug and target site, (iii) to provide a physical rather than
chemical input (such as heat to promote reaction) and/or (iv)
something else entirely? |
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C) How and why would you aim photons at the quantum dots to
change their behaviour? C.1) Would this imply that you were
tracking and targeting individual dots, or were you just going to
bathe the whole affected area in a diffuse photon glow? |
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D) Can you provide a worked example of any of the above? |
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[pertinax] It is simpler than that. [beanangel] wants to attach the quantum dots to the drugs to make new ones. Maybe with light tuning abilities. |
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My problem with this, is the attachment part. |
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Chime in here beany, are PT and (or) WJ correct in
their
evaluations here? |
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Here's the thing, I don't know if this is interesting or
not. Which I guess is sort of interesting. |
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Once the idea of attaching all known drugs to quantum dots is proposed, isn't "attach <insert drug here> to quantum dots" then obvious, and therefore not patentable, for every drug? What could be patentable, I guess, are the details of the attachment and the specific type of quantum dot used for each drug. |
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There's 3 main problems that jump out at me: |
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1. Quantum dots aren't cell permeable. They're really
really not cell permeable. This is because they're huge, so
much so that they interact with the environment as a large
crystal, they can't dissolve into membranes in the
conventional sense, and they're larger than many of the
vesicles involved in pino/endocytosis. |
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2. Quantum dots are massive. One of the great features of
QDs is that you can see them in electron microscopy, that's
because they're incredibly electron dense - something
they share with other electron microscopy stains, such as
osmium tetroxide and uranyl acetate. That means that
each QD attached to each drug will increase the mass by
thousands to millions of fold. So, now your dose of
paracetamol/acetaminophen might be 10 kg. |
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3. Attaching drugs to things isn't straightforward. Take
lithium. Effective drug that floats around as an individual
ion. You can't attach something to that. Same with most
drugs, simply saying you're going to link it to something,
anything really, means fundamentally changing the
molecule. Different drug right from the outset, all the
trials etc/safety is out the window. |
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Also, the fluorescence properties of QDs can't operate how
you describe. Generally, fluorescence requires excitation
by a shorter wavelenth light, e.g. 488nm blue, some
energy is wasted and a longer wavelength light e.g. 550nm
green is emitted. Low grade heat IR can't be re-emitted as
anything useful. |
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// [pertinax] It is simpler than that. [beanangel] wants to attach the quantum dots to the drugs to make new ones. Maybe with light tuning abilities.// |
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Your interpretation is what I meant, thank you! |
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As to quantum dots being too big for things like endocytosis, I found a [link] that suggests that 10-30% of quantum dots with a peptide attached to them pass to the cytoplasm |
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Just looking at one site, there are companies selling conjugated quantum dots of various molecules from antibody, surface and vitamin binding. So there is precedence for attachment but some is never all without complications. |
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My next worry is quantum dots aren't really that natural, an artifact technology out of our desire for scaling atom position and knowledge. Being benign and exceptional glowey just doesn't sit right. |
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Or have we found natural quantum dots floating around? Just double check they are not down stream, out of a lab. |
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//10-30% of quantum dots with a peptide attached to
them pass to the cytoplasm// |
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I read the paper. QDs were delivered to a single layer of
one type of in-vitro* cultured cell line. They were
delivered to the cytosol apparently. I'd dispute that to an
extent. They're excluded from the nucleus in most cases,
and we use the nucleus as a handy proxy for things that
are supposed to be soluble in the cytosol. Instead, what
tends to happen to these things, is that the cell imports
them, doesn't know what to do with the cargo, and so
leave them hanging around in membrane bound vesicles
essentially forever. |
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I'd love it if cells did take up QDs, I could use that right
now. It would mean we could label a protein with an
antibody conjugated QD and visualize it in live-cell
fluorescence and then fix the cells and take a really close
look in transmission electron microscopy of the same
exact thing. The problem is it doesn't work. |
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Imagine what happens to that 10-30% uptake when we
look in the cell types they didn't show us? Then imagine
what happens in tightly packed tissues, in cells that don't
do much endocytosis? |
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Drug linkage/conjugation is usually done with peptide
bonds, disulfides or hydrozones. Not many drugs are
amenable to that, some, sure. |
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Presumably the ones that appreciate opera, and visit art museums on their days off. |
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