For Nanotech Drug Delivery, Size Doesn't Matter--Shape Does  A
team of researchers has found that rod-shaped nanoparticles are
much more likely to penetrate cells than those shaped like
spheres  Courtesy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill  As nanotechnology to ferry drugs to their destinations is
tested in both the laboratory and in clinical trials, scientists
have made a surprising discovery about the kinds of
nanoparticles that might be most effective for eventually
transporting a number of different cancer-fighting therapies
throughout the body.  The conventional wisdom is that the
smaller, the better. But that may not be true, according to a
team of scientists led by University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill (U.N.C.) chemistry professor Joseph DeSimone. DeSimone and
his colleagues have shown that the shape of these microscopic
drug carriers is much more important than size and can even mean
the difference between whether a drug penetrates target cells
effectively or ends up as a target i