in this paper the authors describe making a tiny particle loaded with a natural antimicrobial compound ( they used a constituent of cinnamon essential oil - which we know is active for lyme, bart etc ) that can be taken orally in solution and is only activated when it comes into contact with the pathogen itself - a little bit like a white blood cell
this allows much lower doses while being more targeted and more effective than just taking the same antimicrobial in its regular form
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s2772950824000839Highlights
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Proteins capped-nanoparticles loaded with cinnamaldehyde against E. coli, S. aureus, and C. albicans have been developed.
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Excellent antimicrobial activity at very low doses with the nanoparticles.
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Nanoparticles enhanced the inhibitory properties of cinnamaldehyde.
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Reduction of the biocidal dose of around 98 % and a decrease of 72 % for the yeast strain was achieved.
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The antimicrobial efficacy of cinnamaldehyde when compared to the free compound is improved with the nanoparticles.if they really have made it so it only gets released from the particle when it contacts a pathogen - that is rather clever and could be very useful for treating stubborn infections like Lyme
Haystead and team were working on similar approaches - but they were using molecular binding of the drug to the pathogen and then activating it with light - but that was at proof of concept stage and would need alternative activation methods to treat humans ( light will not penetrate the whole human body )
even though it uses a naturally occurring antimicrobial - i suspect the approach in this paper would still require FDA approval - as its clearly intended to treat a medical condition - and the delivery system itself could be regarded as a drug or medical device - but if they can tune the specificity of their mechanism this could be a game changer in terms of treating chronic infections in the future
i thought it was interesting