Using Malvern technology, researchers at Indiana University are studying virus-based drug delivery systems that can be tuned to a particular size, enabling the uptake of specific functional cargo.
The research team, within the university's Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Department, chose to use a Zetasizer Nano particle characterisation system from Malvern Instruments to conduct the study.
Dr Stella Aniagyei, post-doctoral research associate within the Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry department, said: 'Viruses tend to be nanosized, symmetrical and structurally consistent with a narrow size distribution.
'Despite this apparent biological simplicity, viruses are extremely good at delivering their own genome to living biological tissue.
'This makes them a prime target for biological engineers looking for an efficient transportation device that will deliver drug directly to infected cells.
'Here at Indiana University's Nanocharacterization facility, the Malvern Zetasizer Nano is the go-to instrument for the characterisation of assembled product.
'Structures closely resembling virus give a narrow size distribution.
'If they don't, then we know the process has gone off the biological path.
'We are currently looking at aggregation limits to move towards defining optimum ionic conditions for the assembly of nucleic acid binding to Gag proteins [one of the nine genes in the retrovirus RNA genome],' she added.
Malvern's Zetasizer range uses light scattering techniques to measure the hydrodynamic size, zeta potential and molecular weight of proteins and nanoparticles.
According to Aniagyei, this instrument is very useful for protein characterisation.
