An international team of scientists has developed tiny motorized molecules that can drill holes in cells membranes when stimulated by light. The nanomachines could be useful for drug delivery or directly killing cancer cells.
The nanomotors are paddle-like chains of atoms, which spin up to 2–3 million times a second when supplied with energy in the form of ultraviolet light. The team created several types of nanomotors that can home in on different cell types.
“We thought it might be possible to attach these nanomachines to the cell membrane and then turn them on to see what happened,” said James Tour, a researcher at Rice University who was one of the leads of the study.
