In medical treatment, doctors often prefer to deliver multiple therapeutic compounds to parts of the human body by varying the coatings on the drugs so they are released in a time-resolved manner. Researchers using the liquids reflectometer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Spallation Neutron Source are studying how to build coatings in which polymer layering will hold until drugs reach that part of the body for which they are intended. Faster at data collecting than any other neutron instrument at ORNL, the liquids reflectometer has successfully taken snapshots, in close to real time, of how the multilayered structures can be changed for different applications when researchers modify their structure and function parameters. They are starting to move now from a two-dimensional road map of the structure/function relationship to a 3-D space parameter: specific initial applications that are the first steps toward medical applications.
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