• Question: hey, have you ever discovered any chemicals that reacted strangley to any common diseses?

    Asked by shamsham13 to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      I haven’t myself found any chemicals that reacted strangely, but in my field, nanotechnology, there were many discoveries lately of nanoparticles that react strangely with diseases! For example, there is work being done that perhaps gold nanoparticles may be able to help Alzeimer’s Disease, a mental disease. These nanoparticles have to be small enough to get into the brain and destroy the bad proteins without harming the good parts of the brain. Nanomaterials in general behave with other molecules and even cells in the body in VERY different ways than large materials do, because when you get that small, materials start acting strangely and even in ways we couldn’t predict from larger samples!!!!!!!!!!

    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 1 Jul 2012:

      I use chemicals every day that react oddly to the environments different diseases cause, like DHR-123, it’s a fluorescent dye that shines brighter if you put it inside a cells and it comes across stress molecules. Lots of diseases cause an increase in cell stress so this is a cool way to find out what’s going on.

      As for discovery though, the closest got was when some chemists gave me a vial of pink liquid and asked me to see what it did in cells. As it happened, it started glowing green when I put it in macrophage cells (they’re a kind of immune cell) however didn’t get to finish up on the work due to time constraints. I think I’ve still got that vial kicking around somewhere….you’ve inspired me!

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