Easy Breezy: Particles Prop Open Therapeutic Windows

Easy Breezy: Particles Prop Open Therapeutic Windows

Collections: Image Award Winners, Metastasis

2015 Award Winner

Gregory Szeto, Adelaide Tovar, Jeffrey Wyckoff, Darrell Irvine

Koch Institute at MIT

The lungs are one of the major sites of metastasis—the spread of tumor cells to far-flung organs. To help protect the lungs (blue) from this deadly process, bioengineers have created microscopic drug depots (red) to focus the effect of anti-cancer drugs that may have limited or toxic effects when delivered to the whole body.

In the future, these microparticles could be administered with technology as simple as an inhaler, buying the body time to build up resources to fight or prevent this fatal migration.

Video

Gregory Szeto presents the story behind "Easy Breezy." You can also watch his presentation from the opening event on March 10, 2015 or the image's social media teaser video on the Koch Institute's Facebook page.