Artificial antibodies offer new path to faster disease diagnosis and personalized treatments
Scientists have developed synthetic polymers that mimic natural antibodies, enabling faster, cheaper detection of diseases and targeted drug delivery tailored to individual patients. The technology could accelerate clinical diagnostics and reduce healthcare costs by replacing expensive biological antibodies with engineered alternatives that work across multiple medical applications.
Originaltitel: Recent Advances in Molecularly Imprinted Polymers and Their Disease-Related Applications
Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and the imprinting technique provide polymeric material with recognition elements similar to natural antibodies. The template of choice (i.e., the antigen) can be almost any type of smaller or larger molecule, protein, or even tissue. There are various formats of MIPs developed for different medical purposes, such as targeting, imaging, assay diagnostics, and biomarker detection. Biologically applied MIPs are widely used and currently developed for medical applications, and targeting the antigen with MIPs can also help in personalized medicine. The synthetic recognition sites of the MIPs can be tailor-made to function as analytics, diagnostics, and drug delivery systems. This review will cover the promising clinical applications of different MIP systems recently developed for disease diagnosis and treatment.