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Special delivery: Hitchhiking microparticles deliver drugs directly
Disc-shaped microparticles use monocytes to get to their destination. Credit: Peter Allen illustration
Inflammation is a normal and often beneficial response to injury or infection. The swelling, heat and even pain are the body's attempts to protect its soft tissue, remove offending objects, substances or microbes and initiate healing. However, persistent inflammation is often indicative of more serious conditions and can lead to problems of its own, including impaired healing, loss of function or even tissue death.
"Many diseases result in inflammation," said Samir Mitragotri, professor of chemical engineering at UC Santa Barbara and director of the campus's Center for Bioengineering. Whether inflammation is a byproduct of the disease or the inflammation is the disease, it is a common indicator of a problem with the system. "If we could target the common denominator, whether the inflammation is coming from cancer or arthritis, we could deliver the drug there," said Mitragotri, who specializes in targeted drug delivery.
By taking advantage of natural body processes, researchers at UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed a method of targeting inflamed tissues, creating a way to treat both the inflammation and its underlying cause.
"It's a cell-mediated approach to targeted drug delivery," said UCSB grad student researcher Aaron Anselmo, lead author of a study in the current issue of the Journal of Controlled Release.
Key to this technology is the utilization of monocytes, the type of white blood cell known for its ability to penetrate into deep sections of tissue. Under normal circumstances, the job of these monocytes is to circulate in the blood and respond to biochemical signals that indicate inflammation -- a sign of injury or infection. Once at the site, these monocytes transform into macrophages, cells that reside in the affected tissues to engulf and digest foreign material.
Working with the expertise of chemical engineering and materials science researchers at MIT, including graduate researcher Jonathan Gilbert and professors Robert Cohen and Michael Rubner, the UCSB researchers developed an approach based on "cellular backpacks" -- flat, disc-shaped polymeric particles that could, in the near future, hold therapeutic agents that can be released at the site of the inflammation. These polymeric discs are coated on one side with a single layer of an antibody that can bind to receptors on the monocyte's surface.
To prevent the cellular backpack from being engulfed and devoured by the very cell that is transporting it, the researchers chose a flexible particle that is nonspherical in shape, which, according to the study, has proved to be more durable and resistant to phagocytosis than a rigid spherical particle. The shape and flexibility gives the backpack the ability to bind strongly while resisting phagocytosis to hitchhike onto monocytes and reach the inflamed tissue.
In-vitro and in-vivo tests have proved that cellular backpacks are successful in attaching to and being transported by monocytes to target areas without impairing the monocytes' natural functions, said Anselmo. Further studies will include research into how much drug can be loaded into the cellular backpacks. Ideally, Anselmo said, the cellular backpacks loaded with drugs would be injected into the bloodstream, whereupon they would attach to these traveling monocytes and hitchhike to the target region. At the inflamed site, the particles would simultaneously degrade and release their drugs.
The development of effective cellular backpacks has broad potential, say the researchers.
"Basically the main benefit is that you can deliver the drug in a more effective dose," Mitragotri said. Take for example the case of chemotherapy, which often has a narrow therapeutic range: Too little and the treatment is not effective, too much and it can be lethal. Because chemo travels through the bloodstream and affects all the tissues it comes in contact with, dosages are restricted at least in part based on the deleterious effect it has on other, unafflicted organs and their functions. Not only can targeted therapy ensure other body systems remain unaffected, Mitragotri explained, but it could allow for higher doses of drug to the site, which could decrease treatment time.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara. The original article was written by Sonia Fernandez. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150107151058.htm
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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