Virginia Tech

For decades, one of the strongest weapons against malaria has been a one-two punch: low-tech mosquito bed nets to physically block biting, treated with deadly insecticides to kill the mosquitoes. With widespread use of this combination, malaria deaths have dropped significantly — though nearly 445,000 people died from the disease in 2016 alone. But now…

Researchers at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have identified a cellular response in mice to mild traumatic brain injuries that may lead to seizures. Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of epilepsy, which is characterized as the repeated occurrence of seizures. No treatments currently interrupt the process that the brain undergoes after…

An interdisciplinary team of three Virginia Tech faculty members affiliated with the Macromolecules Innovation Institute has created a drug delivery system that could radically expand cancer treatment options. The conventional cancer treatment method of injecting nanoparticle drugs into the bloodstream results in low efficacy. Due to the complexities of the human body, very few of…

The tissues in our bodies largely are made of fluid. It moves around cells and is essential to normal body function. But in some cases, this fluid may be doing more harm than good. In people who have glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, this fluid has a much higher pressure, causing it to…

Imagine a tiny capsule, smaller than the tip of a needle, that could be programmed to release medicine at a specific location in your body and is inexpensive, easy to make, and more effective than the traditional pharmaceuticals we know today. In addition, after delivering its medical contents, the capsule disappears because it’s biodegradable and…