Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlights
  • Published:

Materials science: Magnetic gel delivers drugs

Nature volume 468, page 1004 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Drugs and cells can be delivered on demand by a porous material engineered to compress in response to an applied magnetic field.

David Mooney at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his team prepared an alginate-based gel with micrometre-sized pores, and paramagnetic iron nanoparticles embedded throughout. On exposure to a magnetic field, the nanoparticles put the squeeze on the ferrogel. The authors used this to release a drug payload in in vitro experiments and, by implanting the gel into mice, for localized release of dye-stained stem cells.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Materials science: Magnetic gel delivers drugs. Nature 468, 1004 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4681004c

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4681004c

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research