• Question: How did you attach drug agents to the nanoparticles?

    Asked by laceyc to Paige on 13 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 13 Mar 2012:

      That is a great question!!!

      Metal nanoparticles, for example, are very good for attaching drugs to them. These nanoparticles have a high ‘surface-area to volume ratio’, meaning that because they are so small, a lot of the nanoparticle is actually ‘surface’ area! For metal nanoparticles, you can easily attach what is called a ‘thiol bond’ to the surface of these nanoparticles. The thiol bond looks like this:

      –S–H

      The ‘S’ stands for sulfur and the ‘H’ stands for hydrogen. You can attach any drug that you want to the surface of the nanoparticle if you put a ‘thiol’ or ‘–SH’ bond on one end of the drug! The bond between the nanoparticle and the drug looks like this:

      Nanoparticle–S–Drug

      The nanoparticle with drugs attached might look this this:

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