5.2 Nano-encapsulation

A new but promising area of research is to encapsulate an antibiotic in a polyester polymer to create a nanoparticle, between 1 and 100 nanometres in size. (A nanometre (nm) is a unit of length equal to one billionth of a metre.)

Nano-sized antibiotic carriers can kill bacteria more effectively than unencapsulated antibiotics. This may be because the transportation of nanoparticles to the site of infection is more efficient, allowing higher concentrations of antibiotic to build up. Another possibility is that the nanoparticles somehow protect the antibiotic from bacterial resistance mechanisms (Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena, 2017).