Credit: Colin P. Pilkington et al.
Researchers at the Imperial College London have developed a novel method that has the potential to significantly increase the efficacy of drugs and vaccines while reducing the side effects of the medications.
Current methodologies for drug delivery include using nanoparticles to deliver the drug or vaccine into the body. Currently, the structure of these nanoparticles is surprisingly simple, typically containing a system of spherical clusters that contain the drug or vaccine.
In the research, published in Nature Chemistry, Imperial College London researchers developed a novel tech that allows for the creation of compartments within compartments at the nanoscale. This compartmentation could allow for the timed release of a drug to target a specific site more effectively.
"Much like Russian dolls, our technology allows us to form particle-in-particle structures, with the ability to control all features of the particles, including the drug or vaccine encapsulated within each one. With further research to study how these nanoparticles interact with live organisms, this advancement holds significant potential for revolutionizing both therapeutics, such as chemotherapies, and vaccines," said Dr. Yuval Elani, of Imperial College London's Department of Chemical Engineering
While the study's findings are promising, the researchers believe this is only the proof of concept stage for the technology. They believe that further research and development will be necessary to demonstrate the system's efficacy within an organism.
"There is a lot of buzz around lipid nanoparticle-based solutions to drug delivery. We hope this work will inspire others to consider more structurally diverse nanoparticle architectures, and that some of the ideas we have explored prove useful to the wider scientific community," said Dr. Colin Pilkington, from Imperial's Department of Chemical Engineering