The best workers are ones that can multitask. Why not ask the same thing of your drug-delivery device? Georgia Tech researchers have figured out a way to do that with a gel capsule containing many different compartments that can simultaneously deliver different types of drugs, reports in-PharmaTechnologist.
They took a hydrogel capsule and outfitted it with polymer chains that subdivided the capsule nicely, using a process that also made their stability temperature-dependent. Next, researchers L. Andrew Lyon and Xiaobo Hu will fill the core of the capsule with hydrophilic drugs and trap hydrophobic drugs within nanoparticles assembled from the polymer chains.
"We have demonstrated that we can make a fairly complex multi-component delivery vehicle using a relatively straightforward and scalable synthesis," Lyon told in-PharmaTechnologist. "Additional research will need to be conducted to determine how they would best be loaded, delivered and triggered to release the drugs."
It is still a solution looking for a problem, however. Lyon told in-PharmaTechnologist that they have not yet determined where these multitasking drug-delivery devices could find their first clinical applications, but suggested gene therapy, siRNA delivery and combination chemotherapy for drug-resistant tumors.
- read the story at in-PharmaTechnologist