The Shea group and collaborators in Japan report the synthesis of a polymer nanoparticle that switches off angiogenesis, the induction of the growth of blood vessels from surrounding tissue.

The polymer nanoparticle binds to the signaling protein, VEGF, inhibiting the biological response. The results offer a new paradigm in the search for protein affinity reagents by providing abiotic polymer nanoparticles with many of the functions of their protein antibody counterparts.  This work appears in Nature Chemistry.