Sonodrugs: targeted drug delivery using microbubbles and ultrasound
Royal Philips Electronics has spearheaded a new European project based on sonoporation, a revolutionary technology for releasing drugs in the right place of the human body. The development of such a technology for delivering medicines to damaged tissues will significantly increase the effectiveness of treatment of cardiovascular and oncological diseases.
The effect of sonoporation is based on the movement of the required dose of the drug into the affected areas of the organs with the help of special particles or microbubbles filled with gas. The size of the particles allows the drug to be transferred (it can be inside such a particle or attached to its shell) by the human circulatory system itself, and through the capillaries of the vessels to penetrate into the affected organs.
The delivery of the drug in the particle to the affected organ will be monitored in real time using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or ultrasound.
Upon reaching the target, the focused ultrasonic pulse will destroy the shells of the containers and release the drug contained in them. Under the influence of ultrasound with the appropriate frequency, the microbubbles begin to increase and shrink in size, as a result of large differences in the tension of the walls, this "bombardment" leads to crushing of the bubble.
If the microbubbles are located close to the cell, then the result of their physical deformation will be an increase in the porosity of the cell walls, which will only contribute to the absorption of the medicinal substance. This method minimizes side effects.
In order to control the process of delivering microbubbles with medication to a diseased organ and carefully focus an ultrasonic pulse on them, precise guidance and focusing of the equipment in real time is required.
To this end, the Sonodrugs project staff visually analyze the results of MRI or ultrasound, two of the most widely used imaging methods in the treatment of cancer or diseases of the cardiovascular system. The Philips focused high-intensity ultrasound pulse research system in combination with magnetic resonance imaging will be used as the basic system of the Sonodrugs project to study the sonoporation effect.
The Sonodrugs project, designed for 4 years, combines several complex projects. This includes the main scientific developments concerning the development of a new type of particles of the required size, the required structure, the required physical behavior and biocompatibility, a set of works on laboratory tests of derived particles and a set of works on the evaluation of biological distribution in vivo and the effectiveness of drug delivery technology.
The Sonodrugs project involves 15 institutions: university medical centers and academic institutions from all over the European Union (EU). The project budget is 15.9 million euros, of which 10.9 million euros are allocated according to the 7th Framework Program for Scientific and Technological Development of the EU.
Among the partners of SonoDrugs are Philips (Netherlands, Germany and Finland), Nanobiotix (France) and Lipoid (Germany); University medical centers Erasmus Medical Center (Netherlands) and Universitäts Klinikum Münster (Germany); Academic University of Cyprus Institutions (Cyprus), University of Ghent (Belgium), University of Helsinki (Finland), University of London (UK), University of Tours (France), Viktor Segalen University (France), Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) and Udine University (Italy).
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