Targeted Drug Delivery can be Achieved by Nanoscale Glass Bottles

Release Date: 25-Sep-2019

A new drug delivery method for achieving target drug delivery involves use of small silica bottles. These bottles are filled with medicaments along with a special temperature sensitive material. This new device is able to deliver the drug, which kill the malignant cells only in a particular part of body. This study was published by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology.

The team of researchers develops a method to create tiny silica based hollow spheres with a size of about 200 nanometers. Each sphere consists of a tiny hole in the surface, which is used to encapsulate a wide range of medicaments, which are released at a certain temperature in the body.

In the study, the researchers also describe the packing of spheres with a mixture of fatty acids. They also used a near-infrared dye and an anticancer drug for the packing of the nanoscale glass bottle. The fatty acids remain solid at human body temperature but melt a few degrees above. When an infrared laser is absorbed by the dye, the fatty acids will be quickly melted to release the therapeutic drug.

An earlier method of achieving controlled drug release involves the use of low density lipoproteins known as bad cholesterol. Another approach involves loading the mixture of medicament into the gold nanocages. Both the method has a major disadvantage the encapsulated material was not able to interact into the body.

The develop nanoscale silica bottles, the research team firstly formulate tiny spheres of polystyrene along with a small gold particle embedded in its surface. The fabricated spheres are than coated with the silica based material all over the sphere except the gold nanoparticle. Once the gold and polystyrene are removed, only a hollow silica sphere with a small opening remains. To adjust the size of the opening, the researchers simply changed the size of the gold nanoparticle.

The testing of release mechanism was done by putting the nanocapsules in water and used a near-infrared laser to heat the dye. Increase in temperature takes place, which release the drug and concentration of released drug is detected. The test confirmed that without the use of the laser, the medicine remains encapsulated. After several minutes of heating, concentrations of the therapeutic rose in the water.

According to Jichuan Qui, one of the researchers from the team, this controlled release system enables us to deal with the adverse impacts associated with most chemotherapeutics by only releasing the drug at a dosage above the toxic level inside the diseased site.