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Focusing Drug Antibiotic Delivery on Infected Tissue

　　H. Shaw Warren, MD,[9] of Massachusetts General Hospital East in Charlestown, Massachusetts, described some fascinating work designed to focus drug delivery to the infected tissues. Dr. Warren used amikacin, an aminoglycoside that (unlike gentamicin) had a convenient side chain for bonding, as a ligand with the chemotactic factor f-met-leu-fe (formyl-methionine-leucine-phenylalanine). This allowed amikacin to be delivered with neutrophils to the areas where the pathogenic bacteria elicited an inflammatory response. Analogues of this factor can aggregate with neutrophils without activating the neutrophils. There are a variety of technical problems that must be solved with this approach, but the principle is intriguing and preliminary results in animal models are promising.