The World in 2030

The World in 2030 299
drugs by targeting them more selectively to tumors
and boosting their solubility in water.
Besides being safer and easier to administer, polymeric
micelles maintain anti-cancer drugs like rapamycin
in blood plasma for longer periods than do standard
formulations, Kwon has found. It’s a promising
result that could give the drugs a greater chance of
accumulating at tumor sites.
Polymeric micelles may also make it easier to mix
stronger cancer-fighting cocktails containing more
than one chemotherapeutic agent. Doing so now is
a challenge because hydrophobic drugs in solution
together tend to ‘crash out,’ says Kwon, becoming
particulate, aggregated — and useless. 525
And plastics are being used alongside carbon nanotubes to
help fight HIV, as the New Scientist reported in March 2007:
Carbon nanotubes have been used to smuggle HIVblocking
molecules into human cells. Although preliminary,
the discovery could lead to new treatments
for the deadly virus. A complex chemical trick was
used to attach the siRNA to the carbon nanotubes.
Carbon-hydrogen chains, which bind tightly to nanotubes,
were connected with a polymer called polyethylene
glycol (PEG). This was then fixed to siRNA
via two sulphur atoms. 526
In addition plastic robots are already helping surgeons to
operate in conditions unsuitable for conventional surgery.