Microparticle Drug Delivery

ANNIE CAVANAGH AND DAVE MCCARTHY

Image from the Wellcome Image Awards 2009

This image shows the synthetic polymers used to coat a drug, either to target the release of the drug in a specific part of the digestive tract or to allow the drug to be released slowly. Polymers play an important role in reducing side-effects of drugs, as well as the number of times a patient needs to take a medication.

Scanning electron micrograph images are taken in black and white and are coloured later. The orange spheres contain the drug and the encapsulating co-polymers are coloured blue.

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Lung Cancer Cell – Photograph by Anne Weston

ANNE WESTON, LONDON RESEARCH INSTITUTE, CANCER RESEARCH UK 

Image from the Wellcome Image Awards 2009 

A single cell grown from a culture of lung epithelial cancer cells. The purple spheres are ‘blebs’: irregular bulges where the cell’s internal scaffolding – its cytoskeleton – becomes unlinked from the surface membrane. Scanning electron micrograph. 

By Anne Weston

 

http://www.wellcomeimageawards.org/gallery.aspx