
UNSW engineers have shown that micro-submarines powered by nano-motors could navigate the human body to provide targeted drug delivery to diseased organs without the need for external stimulus.
Cancers in the human body may one day be treated by tiny, self-propelled ‘micro-submarines’ delivering medicine to affected organs after UNSW Sydney chemical and biomedical engineers proved it was possible.
In a paper published in Materials Today, the engineers explain how they developed micrometre-sized submarines that exploit biological environments to tune their buoyancy, enabling them to carry drugs to specific locations in the body.
Corresponding author Dr Kang Liang, with both the School of Biomedical Engineering and School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW, says the knowledge can be used to design next generation ‘micro-motors’ or nano-drug delivery vehicles, by applying novel driving forces to reach specific targets in the body.
“We already know that micro-motors use different external driving forces – such as light, heat or magnetic field – to actively navigate to a specific location,” Dr Liang says.
“In this research, we designed micro-motors that no longer rely on external manipulation to navigate to a specific location. Instead, they take advantage of variations in biological environments to automatically navigate themselves.”
What makes these micro-sized particles unique is that they respond to changes in biological pH environments to self-adjust their buoyancy. In the same way that submarines use oxygen or water to flood ballast points to make them more or less buoyant, gas bubbles released or retained by the micro-motors due to the pH conditions in human cells contribute to these nanoparticles moving up or down.
This is significant not just for medical applications, but for micro-motors generally.
“Most micro-motors travel in a 2-dimensional fashion,” Dr Liang says.
“But in this work, we designed a vertical direction mechanism. We combined these two concepts to come up with a design of autonomous micro-motors that move in a 3D fashion. This will enable their ultimate use as smart drug delivery vehicles in the future.”
Dr Liang illustrates a possible scenario where drugs are taken orally to treat a cancer in the stomach or intestines. To give an idea of scale, he says each capsule of medicine could contain millions of micro-submarines, and within each micro-submarine would be millions of drug molecules.
“Imagine you swallow a capsule to target a cancer in the gastrointestinal tract,” he says.
“Once in the gastrointestinal fluid, the micro-submarines carrying the medicine could be released. Within the fluid, they could travel to the upper or bottom region depending on the orientation of the patient.
“The drug-loaded particles can then be internalised by the cells at the site of the cancer. Once inside the cells, they will be degraded causing the release of the drugs to fight the cancer in a very targeted and efficient way.”
For the micro-submarines to find their target, a patient would need to be oriented in such a way that the cancer or ailment being treated is either up or down – in other words, a patient would be either upright or lying down.
Dr Liang says the so-called micro-submarines are essentially composite metal-organic frameworks (MOF)-based micro-motor systems containing a bioactive enzyme (catalase, CAT) as the engine for gas bubble generation. He stresses that he and his colleagues’ research is at the proof-of-concept stage, with years of testing needing to be completed before this could become a reality.
Dr Liang says the research team – comprised of engineers from UNSW, University of Queensland, Stanford University and University of Cambridge – will be also looking outside of medical applications for these new multi-directional nano-motors.
“We are planning to apply this new finding to other types of nanoparticles to prove the versatility of this technique,” he says.
Learn more: ‘Submarines’ small enough to deliver medicine inside human body
The Latest on: Micro-submarines
[google_news title=”” keyword=”micro-submarines” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Micro-submarines
- Fratello’s Top 5 Dress Watches Of The First Half Of 2024 — From Furlan Marri, Chopard, Parmigiani, And Moreon July 26, 2024 at 6:30 am
Are dress watches still hot? ✓ Check out our five favorites of the first half of 2024 ✓ Chopard, Furlan Marri, and more ✓ ...
- New Chicago Boutique Firm Invests In Undervalued Assets In Overlooked Micro-Marketson July 24, 2024 at 10:18 am
Boutique CRE family firm Wayland Real Estate Capital takes a calculated approach by focusing on building in undervalued micro-markets for long-term value.
- What's Going On With Mullen Automotive Stock Today?on July 24, 2024 at 9:28 am
Mullen Automotive shares decline as it secures order from GAMA for 29 micro urban delivery vehicles amid broader market challenges.
- European development finance agencies put up $20 million to boost lending to small African enterpriseson July 24, 2024 at 1:07 am
The Regional MSME Investment Fund for Sub-Saharan Africa, a mouthful of a fund known as REGMIFA, aims to foster a diverse funding ecosystem to help small enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa lacking in ...
- Fighter jets to submarines: Budget 2024 aims at major defence acquisitionson July 23, 2024 at 7:43 am
In absolute terms, Budget 2024's allocation under the capital head to the armed forces stands at Rs 1.72 trillion, which is over nine per cent more than the FY24 Revised Allocation ...
- Micro-sized optical spectrometer operates across visible spectrum with sub-5-nm resolutionon July 20, 2024 at 5:40 am
Optical spectrometers are versatile instruments that can produce light and measure its properties over specific portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. These instruments can have various possible ...
- Super Micro: Reiterating A Buy For Aggressive Growth Investorson July 19, 2024 at 11:11 pm
Super Micro Computer is a solid investment choice for AI infrastructure ... full rack scale solutions, networking devices, server sub-systems, server management and security software. We continue to ...
- Why ASML Holdings, Micron Technology, and Advanced Micro Devices Fell This Weekon July 19, 2024 at 4:30 am
ASML earnings were overshadowed by the prospect of more restrictions on sales to China and comments by former President Trump.
- Why you should consider micro pensionon July 16, 2024 at 9:01 pm
With a high proportion of Nigeria’s working population in the informal sector, the micro pension plan has become more important, OLUWAKEMI ABIMBOLA writesAs the December deadline for the 30 per cent ...
- Titan sub might have imploded from ‘micro-buckling,’ new study suggestson May 2, 2024 at 3:42 pm
Although the simulations did not analyze whether micro-buckling caused the Titan implosion ... Officials are still investigating the evidence recovered from the sub wreckage.
via Bing News