The importance of this technique becomes even clearer when considering the larger context. An astonishing 100 million Americans are affected by obesity and related cardiometabolic disorders, notes S. Thai Thayumanavan, a distinguished biomedical engineer and chemist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “We were really excited about this work,” he says. The brilliance of this method lies in the nanogel itself. These tiny carriers are packed with a synthetic thyroid hormone drug called a thyromimetic. While thyroid hormones are crucial for liver metabolism, they often prove ineffective an…