Elastin-like polypeptide switches: A design strategy to detect multimeric proteins.

Elastin-Like Polypeptides (ELPs) reversibly phase separate in response to changes in temperature, pressure, concentration, pH, and ionic species. While powerful triggers, biological microenvironments present a multitude of more specific biological cues, such as antibodies, cytokines, and cell-surface receptors. To develop better biosensors and bioresponsive drug carriers, rational strategies are required to sense and respond to these target proteins.

Image-driven pharmacokinetics: nanomedicine concentration across space and time.

Clinical pharmacokinetics (PK) primarily measures the concentration of drugs in the blood. For nanomedicines it may be more relevant to determine concentration within a target tissue. The emerging field of image-driven PK, which utilizes clinically accepted molecular imaging technology, empirically and noninvasively, measures concentration in multiple tissues.