Use of nanotechnology in the creation of moden medicines-governmental funds and their targeting systems (literature review).

Properties of nanoscale carriers recommended by the European Pharmacopeia for use in the creation of drugs and their complexes with physiologically active substances are given. Ihe authors present general descriptions of the methods of creation and especially of carriers identified in the accumulation of experience in their use for creating drugs with desired properties of penetration of biological barriers and length of service of the therapeutic effect.

Neodymium glass laser with a phase conjugate mirror producing 220 J pulses at 0.02 Hz repetition rate.

For pumping multipetawatt Ti:sapphire laser facilities we developed a compact repetitively pulsed laser based on neodymium phosphate glass with pulse energy of 220 J, pulse repetition rate of 0.02 Hz, beam diameter of 43 mm, aperture fill factor of 0.8, and FWHM pulse duration of 30 ns. The phase distortions of laser radiation were compensated by optical phase conjugation via stimulated Brillouin scattering. The depolarization was reduced to 0.4% using linear compensation methods. The beam quality was 2.5 x diffraction limit (150 µrad).

Large-aperture Nd:glass laser amplifiers with high pulse repetition rate.

Nd:glass amplifiers are used in most of the existed petawatt laser facilities. A typical repetition rate of such lasers is 1 shot per 30 minutes or less. Limitations are thermally induced distortions of radiation and tensile stresses in Nd:glass. An increase of the repetition rate is an urgent problem. We have investigated thermally induced depolarization and thermal lens effects in Nd:glass rods up to 10 cm in diameter at a pump pulse repetition period of 3 minutes. It is shown that the rods have a safety factor of at least 5 before thermal stress induced damage would occur, and despite of their size phase and polarization distortions could be compensated.

Antioxidative activity of high density lipoproteins in vivo.

The present study consists of experimental and clinical investigations. It was shown that a single intravenous injection of a large dose of human HDL3 (200 mg protein) to rabbits with induced hypercholesterolemia (plasma cholesterol 500-700 mg/dl) was accompanied by a significant elevation of plasma HDL and led to a decrease (P < 0.05) of conjugated dienes and trienes by 20-30% after 6 h. Conjugated dienes remained stable for 24 h after HDL administration. In the clinical investigations a weak but statistically significant negative correlation (r = 0.262; P = 0.006) between HDL cholesterol and the content of conjugated dienes in the plasma of a total group of healthy subjects and patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) was found. The data allowed us to conclude that, in addition to other antioxidative systems, HDL also take part in the protection of plasma lipids from peroxidation.

On the ability of high density lipoproteins to remove phospholipid peroxidation products from erythrocyte membranes.

To study the transfer of oxidized phospholipids from cell membranes to high-density lipoproteins (HDL), human Cu2+-oxidized erythrocyte membranes were incubated with HDL3 subfraction for 17 h at 37 degrees C followed by isolation of the supernatant, precipitation from it of HDL3, and determination of lipid peroxide products (LPP) in them. The incubation increased the content of lipid hydroperoxides in HDL3 significantly (by 32 and 40% calculated per ml of sample or mg of protein) and of malondialdehyde (by 27 and 34%, respectively) compared to control (incubation of HDL3 alone). The content of conjugated dienes did not change significantly. Fluorescence analyses of isolated HDL3 particles showed that the content of fluorescent products (lambdaex = 365 nm, lambdaem = 430 nm) in them was 2.5 times higher than in control, and the number of binding sites for the 1-anilinonaphthalene-8-sulfonic acid probe decreased by 22%. This also confirms accumulation of LPP in the lipoprotein subfraction. It seems likely that an increase in LPP (at least hydroperoxides) in HDL3 after their incubation with oxidized membranes occurs via transport of phospholipids containing LPP from erythrocyte membranes to lipoproteins. The data on the ability of HDL3 to accept LPP from erythrocyte membranes in vitro suggest that HDL3 may have a protective action on cell membranes undergoing oxidation in vivo as well.