Scientists are reporting an exciting advance in this field, demonstrating how positively-charged nanomaterials can be injected into unhealthy fat to return it to a healthy state, laying the foundation for treatments that selectively target fat depots anywhere in the body.

Led by scientists at Columbia University, the research was published across two papers and centers on the different functions fat cells can take on in the human body, and the difference between healthy fat metabolism and unhealthy fat formation. Fat cells store energy in the form of lipids, but when they're tasked with taking on too much, they start to grow large and undergo changes to specific genes, ultimately leading to obesity.

The research team set out to remodel these fat cells rather than simply destroy them, and have found success using a positively charged nanomaterial called PAMAM generation 3 (P-G3). The scientists were inspired to deploy P-G3 against fat cells after finding that some fat tissue contains a negatively charged extracellular matrix (ECM), the support structure for the cells. This raised the possibility that the ECM could act as a transport system for positively charged molecules.

So, the team injected P-G3 into obese mice and indeed found that it spread rapidly throughout the fat tissue. They were surprised to find, however, that the nanomaterial had the effect of shutting down the lipid storage function of the fat cells, effectively returning them to a younger, healthier state. The mice lost weight as a result.