Quantum dots could treat Parkinson’s disease

Injected tiny particles called quantum dots reduce symptoms in mice primed to develop a type of Parkinson’s disease, although tests in people are some years away. Quantum dots are just a few nanometres in size – so small they become subject to some of the strange effects of quantum physics.



Unlike most medicines, that makes them tiny enough to pass from the bloodstream into the brain. Byung Hee Hong of Seoul National University in South Korea and his colleagues wondered if they would affect the molecules involved in Parkinson’s.

This disease is thought to be caused by a protein called synuclein, found in nerve cells, folding into the wrong shape. This triggers a chain reaction of misfolding in nearby synuclein molecules. The result is a build-up of long strands or “fibrils” of the protein, killing neurons.

Hong’s team found that in a dish, quantum dots made from graphene bind to synuclein, stopping it from clumping into new fibres and breaking up existing ones. “We didn’t expect the quantum dots to induce disaggregation of fibrils,” says Hong.

Next the team injected quantum dots into mice dosed with fibrils, which normally trigger gradually worsening movement problems. Six months later, the mice showed improvement on two different physical tests.

If the treatment affects people the same way, Hong says it is unclear how much benefit it would bring. “It’s hard to translate the results in mice to actual patients, whose systems are way more complicated,” he says. “But we do believe quantum dots can make positive impacts to some extent.

The findings are promising, but must be tested in people, says Sebastien Paillusson of King’s College London. “Unfortunately, in Parkinson’s, there have been a lot of compounds shown to work in mice but not in humans.

Credit: New Scientist