Nanoparticles are increasingly considered an attractive alternative to standard free drugs for chemotheraphy. The idea is to target the drug inside a particle selectively to the site of the disease.
In addition to using cultured cells as in vitro models, in the past 10 years, we have established zebrafish models for cancer and tuberculosis (picture below) where we test fluorescent nanoparticles containing drugs for their accumulation in the area of interest and for their efficacy.
The zebrafish embryo is transparent allowing real time, non invasive visualization of nanoparticles and cells with which they interact inside the fish.
