Molecular “robots” could help create better drugs for rheumatoid arthritis

 Targeted drugs, which avoid killing healthy cells along with disease-causing cells, may soon be developed using molecular “robots” that hone in on specific populations of cells.

Publishing their work in Nature Nanotechnology, US scientists say that the approach means that new drugs could avoid many of the nasty side effects associated with current treatments.

Some rheumatoid arthritis drugs work by docking on CD20 receptors of cells that cause the disease. But immune cells also have CD20 receptors and so the drug can interfere with a person’s ability to fight infection.

Using white blood cells, the team designed molecular robots that can identify between many receptors on cell surfaces, so can label more specific subpopulations of cells and allow more targeted therapy.

So far the experts have shown that the technique works in human blood. Now they need to test it on animals before human trials begin. If it does work, people with cancer could experience more targeted chemotherapy. And drugs for rheumatoid arthritis will be tailored to affect disease-causing autoimmune cells and not the cells that are needed to fight infection.