Finding Fat Before Heart Attacks

A scientist in Missouri has developed a novel use for nanoparticles: diagnosing atherosclerosis. Biomedical engineer Shelton Caruthers and his team at Washington University in St. Louis are short-circuiting this deadly progression using nanoparticles to detect arterial obstructions before they can cause serious damage. Caruthers' early-detection solution is to inject patients with 200-nanometer-long particles whose surfaces are modified to bind to avb3, a proteinlike compound the body uses to form new blood vessels. When the researchers took MRI images of the animals' abdominal aortas -- one of the largest arteries in the body -- they could clearly see clumps of nanoparticles surrounding diseased areas of the vessels. When they enter the bloodstream, he said, these particles "reduce new blood vessel formation, which also reduces the amount of plaque growth that can take place."