Nanoparticles can penetrate the membranes of living cells upon manipulating their tension. This was found by Jean-Baptiste Fleury and Ralf Seemann form project B4 of the SFB 1027 in collaboration with colleagues from Tarragona, Spain. The researchers studied the transport of carbon-nanotubes through lipid bilayers. In doing they could demonstrate that the penetration of the artificial cell membrane is a physical process that can be modulated by the membrane tension. Their results were now published in the journal ACSNano.

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