Trend Technology 6: the body's own vesicles are engineered as drug carriers

Summary

Exosome drug delivery is the sixth emerging technology in the report, aimed at what it calls medicine's last-mile problem. Many targeted therapies can silence genes, edit mutations or deliver proteins in the lab, but they often break down in the bloodstream, provoke immune reactions or fail to cross the body's barriers. Exosomes are membrane-wrapped packets that cells constantly release to send proteins, RNA and genetic instructions to each other, working like an internal mail system. Because they carry molecular signatures the body recognizes as its own, they survive circulation and can cross barriers such as the one protecting the brain better than synthetic carriers. Engineering them means loading therapeutic cargo and reprogramming surface proteins to find specific diseased cells. The body accepts the delivery because it recognizes the courier.