In the News
All the new interesting studies relating to the research underway in the Polymer Therapeutics Lab!
GPS nanoparticle platform precisely delivers therapeutic payload to cancer cells
Equipped with novel homing abilities, the platform activates in cancer environments to release gene-editing tools
Mirror-image molecules separated using workhorse of chemistry
The ability to distinguish between left- and right-handed molecules using mass spectrometry could streamline a laborious part of drug discovery. See the article at Science.
Bioengineers on the brink of breaching blood-brain barrier
A team of researchers in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has devised a method to deliver mRNA into the brain using lipid nanoparticles, potentially advancing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and seizures.
Could Two Drugs Be Better Than One for Treating Prostate Cancer?
UCSF-led clinical trial shows improved benefit of combination drug therapy without worse side effects.
Metastatic breast cancer treatments have aided decline in deaths, Stanford Medicine-led study finds
Treatment of metastatic disease is responsible for nearly one-third of the decrease in annual deaths from breast cancer from 1975 to 2019, according to a Stanford Medicine-led study.
Intracerebral fate of engineered nanoparticles
Organic and inorganic nanoparticles have different clearance mechanisms from the brain resulting in different biological fates and retention times.
See Nature Nanotechnology News and Views and the original article at Nature Nanotechnology.
Large language models direct automated chemistry laboratory
Automation of chemistry research has focused on developing robots to execute jobs. Artificial-intelligence technology has now been used not only to control robots, but also to plan their tasks on the basis of simple human prompts.
See Nature News and Views and the original article at Nature.
Spinning up control: Propeller shape helps direct nanoparticles, researchers say
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Self-propelled nanoparticles could potentially advance drug delivery and lab-on-a-chip systems — but they are prone to go rogue with random, directionless movements. Now, an international team of researchers has developed an approach to rein in the synthetic particles.
Google AI and robots join forces to build new materials
An autonomous system that combines robotics with artificial intelligence (AI) to create entirely new materials has released its first trove of discoveries. The system, known as the A-Lab, devises recipes for materials, including some that might find uses in batteries or solar cells. Then, it carries out the synthesis and analyses the products — all without human intervention. Meanwhile, another AI system has predicted the existence of hundreds of thousands of stable materials, giving the A-Lab plenty of candidates to strive for in future.
New platform solves key problems in targeted drug delivery
Now, Northwestern University synthetic biologists have developed a flexible new platform that solves part of this daunting delivery problem. Mimicking natural processes used by viruses, the delivery system binds to target cells and effectively transfers drugs inside.
Drug-filled nanocapsule helps make immunotherapy more effective in mice
UCLA researchers have developed a new treatment method using a tiny nanocapsule to help boost the immune response, making it easier for the immune system to fight and kill solid tumors.
The investigators found the approach, described in the journal Science Translational Medicine, increased the number and activity of immune cells that attack the cancer, making cancer immunotherapies work better.
New 3D-printed tumour model enables faster, less expensive and less painful cancer treatment
An international team of interdisciplinary researchers has successfully created a method for better 3D modelling of complex cancers.
The University of Waterloo-based team combined cutting-edge bioprinting techniques with synthetic structures or microfluidic chips. The method will help lab researchers more accurately understand heterogeneous tumours: tumours with more than one kind of cancer cell, often dispersed in unpredictable patterns.
Scientists reverse drug resistance in prostate cancer by targeting ‘hijacked’ white blood cells
Prostate cancer’s resistance to treatment can be reversed in some patients by stopping hijacked white blood cells from being ‘pulled into’ tumours, according to new research published in Nature.
In an early clinical trial, researchers showed that blocking the messages cancer uses to hijack white blood cells can resensitise a subset of advanced prostate cancers to treatment – shrinking tumours or halting their growth.
New drug delivery system developed by Brown engineers has potential to improve cancer treatments
The hydrogel is designed to balance pH levels in a malignant tumor and act as a delivery system for one of the most effective cancer fighting drugs, potentially addressing critical problems faced in current cancer treatment.
Research identifies new potential hurdle for nano-based therapies
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that certain nano-based cancer therapies may be less effective in younger patients, highlighting the need for further investigation into the impact of aging on the body’s ability to respond to treatment.
The researchers found age-related differences are due to how effectively the liver filters the bloodstream. Younger livers are more efficient at this process, which helps limit toxins in the blood but also filters out beneficial treatments, potentially rendering them ineffective.
Microdevices Implanted into Tumors Offer New Way to Treat Brain Cancer
The shape and size of a grain of rice, the new device can conduct dozens of experiments at once to study the effects of new treatments on some of the hardest-to-treat brain cancers
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, have designed a device that can help test treatments in patients with gliomas, a type of tumor that originates in the brain or spinal cord. The device, which is designed to be used during standard care of surgery, provides unprecedented insight into the effects of drugs on glioma tumors and caused no adverse effects on patients in a phase 1 clinical trial. Results from the pilot clinical trial for the device are published in Science Translational Medicine.
A new chemical process makes it easier to craft amino acids that don’t exist in nature
Every protein in your body is made up of the same 20 building blocks called amino acids. But just because nature is stuck with a limited toolkit doesn’t mean humans can’t expand it.
A study published in Science on July 27 by a team including Pitt chemists describes a powerful new way to create “unnatural” amino acids, which could find use in protein-based therapies and open up novel branches of organic chemistry.
Site selectivity steps in
The concepts of multistep processes and regioselectivity — fundamental in covalent synthesis — have now been applied to the non-covalent synthesis of sequence-controlled multiblock supramolecular polymers. See more News & Views and the original paper.
‘Clicked’ drugs: researchers prove the remarkable chemistry in humans
Bioorthogonal click chemistry is being used in patients to help target cancer medicines and diagnostic imaging agents. See more at Nature Biotechnology.
Scientists Design a Nanoparticle That May Improve mRNA Cancer Vaccines
Tests in mice with melanoma and colon cancer show tiny particle creates an “army” of immune cells that carry vaccine’s instructions, researchers say. For more, see John Hopkin’s Medicine and PNAS.
Researchers show how a tumor cell’s location and environment affect its identity
New approach could provide insights into cancer progression and treatment response, leading to more precise therapies. See more at the NIH and Cell Systems.
Biodegradable Ultrasound Opens the Blood-Brain Barrier
Anew, biodegradable ultrasound far more powerful than previous devices could make brain cancers more treatable, University of Connecticut researchers report in Science Advances.
New method enables study of nano-sized particles
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have created a new method of studying the smallest bioparticles in the body. The study, which is published in Nature Biotechnology, has considerable scientific potential, such as in the development of more effective vaccines.
Researchers discover that various species share a similar mechanism of molecular response to nanoparticles
Researchers at FHAIVE (Finnish Hub for Development and Validation of Integrated Approaches), Tampere University, have discovered a new response mechanism specific to exposure to nanoparticles that is common to multiple species.
By analyzing a large collection of datasets concerning the molecular response to nanomaterials, Doctoral Researcher Giusy del Giudice has revealed an ancestral epigenetic mechanism of defense that explains how different species, from humans to simpler creatures, adapt over time to this type of exposure.
Read more here – https://phys.org/news/2023-05-species-similar-mechanism-molecular-response.html
This gel stops brain tumors in mice. Could it offer hope for humans?
The gel can reach areas that surgery might miss and current drugs struggle to reach to kill lingering cancer cells and suppress tumor growth
Read more at Johns Hopkins University and PNAS.
Rerouting nanoparticles to bone marrow via neutrophil hitchhiking
Drug delivery to the bone marrow has limited efficiency, hitchhiking on bone marrow homing neutrophils offers a solution.
See more at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01373-8 and https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01374-7
IMPLANTABLE DEVICE SHRINKS PANCREATIC TUMORS
Houston Methodist nanomedicine researchers have found a way to tame pancreatic cancer – one of the most aggressive and difficult to treat cancers – by delivering immunotherapy directly into the tumor with a device that is smaller than a grain of rice.
See more at https://www.houstonmethodist.org/newsroom/implantable-device-shrinks-pancreatic-tumors and https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202206873
A 21st-century remedy for missed meds
Rice lab’s tech could deliver time-released drugs, vaccines for months
Missing crucial doses of medicines and vaccines could become a thing of the past thanks to Rice University bioengineers’ next-level technology for making time-released drugs.
‘Astonishing’ molecular syringe ferries proteins into human cells
Technique borrowed from nature, and honed using artificial intelligence, could spur the development of better drug-delivery systems.
Read the Nature News item here and the original article here.
A synthetic tumour microenvironment
A bioengineered model incorporating a synthetic extracellular matrix recapitulates the lymphoid tumour microenvironment, making it a valuable tool for drug testing and designing personalized therapies.
See the News & Views and the original article for more!
Multidrug nanomedicine – “Molecular bottlebrush prodrugs as mono- and triplex combination therapies for multiple myeloma”
Polymer-based nanomedicines have been engineered to ratiometrically deliver three different drugs to tumors, thereby bridging in vitro–in vivo correlation and producing synergistic therapeutic efficacy in multiple myeloma mouse models.
CRISPR cancer trial success paves the way for personalized treatments
A small clinical trial has shown that researchers can use CRISPR gene editing to alter immune cells so that they will recognize mutated proteins specific to a person’s tumours. Those cells can then be safely set loose in the body to find and destroy their target.
It is the first attempt to combine two hot areas in cancer research: gene editing to create personalized treatments, and engineering immune cells called T cells so as to better target tumours. The approach was tested in 16 people with solid tumours, including in the breast and colon.
See Nature News for more.
Study Unveils How Different Cancer Cells Respond to Drug Delivery Nanoparticles
The results of a new study by researchers at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard may help to overcome some of the obstacles to the development of nanoparticle-based drugs. The team analyzed the interactions between 35 different types of nanoparticles and nearly 500 types of cancer cells, revealing thousands of biological traits that influence whether those cells take up different types of nanoparticles.
Nanotechnology meets circular economy
The transition from a linear ‘take–make–dispose’ economy to a circular economy is gaining momentum. Although there are many opportunities for using nanotechnology to enable circularity, the knowledge gaps related to (eco-)toxicological hazards and the presence of nanomaterials in waste streams constitute significant challenges.
Nanochannels light the way towards new medicine
To develop new drugs and vaccines, detailed knowledge about nature’s smallest biological building blocks – the biomolecules – is required. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, are now presenting a groundbreaking microscopy technique that allows proteins, DNA and other tiny biological particles to be studied in their natural state in a completely new way.
Why drug delivery is the key to new medicines
Designing a new drug is not enough; it has to be delivered to its target, which can be achieved via a cornucopia of vehicles, from nanoparticles and microneedles to red blood cells and microalgae.
Lipophilic siRNA conjugates yield durable silencing in extrahepatic tissues
RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics can silence disease-causing gene transcripts, but extrahepatic delivery has been challenging. Conjugating short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to a lipophilic alkyl chain enabled safe delivery and long-term mRNA silencing in the brain, eye and lung in animal models, thereby opening new applications for RNAi therapeutics.
Scientists Create Nanoparticle That Helps Fight Solid Tumors
Researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine have discovered a possible new approach in treating solid tumors through the creation of a novel nanoparticle. Solid tumors are found in cancers such as breast, head and neck, and colon cancer.
In the study, Xin Ming, Ph.D., associate professor of cancer biology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and his team used a nanoparticle to deliver a small molecule called ARL67156 to promote an anti-tumor immune response in mouse models of colon, head and neck, and metastatic breast cancer, resulting in increased survival.
The study is published online in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
New drug delivery system releases therapeutic cargo only when bacteria are present
A new material developed at Brown University can respond to the presence of bacterial enzymes by releasing a cargo of therapeutic nanoparticles, which could prove particularly helpful in wound dressings.
Colorectal Cancer Drug Delivery System Combines Nanoparticles and Hyaluronic Acid
A recent surge in using biomolecules as carrier systems led to the development of biomolecule-based nanoparticles (NPs) for cancer treatment. In an article recently published in the journal Materials Today Communications, authors developed encorafenib (ECF) encapsulated hyaluronic acid (HA)-decorated polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) polymeric NPs to treat colorectal cancer. They hypothesized that the synthesized NPs lowered reactive oxygen species (ROS) by cellular internalization and subsequent apoptotic arrest.
Lipid nanodiscs give cancer a STING
Lipid nanodiscs carrying a potent STING agonist penetrate deep into solid tumours compared with gold-standard liposomes and enable long-term antitumour immunotherapy.
See Nature Materials News and Views and the original article for more!
A polymer-nanoparticle hydrogel to subcutaneously deliver broadly neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2
In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* pre-print server, researchers compared the polymer-nanoparticle (PNP) hydrogel system and standard routes of delivery of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in a mouse model.
Outsmarting brain cancer
Scientists at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center were optimistic when they identified a small molecule that blocked a key pathway in brain tumors. But there was a problem: How to get the inhibitor through the bloodstream and into the brain to reach the tumor.
In collaboration with multiple labs, the teams fabricated a nanoparticle to contain the inhibitor, and the results were even better than expected.
Study finds nanomedicine targeting lymph nodes key to triple negative breast cancer treatment
In mice, nanomedicine can remodel the immune microenvironment in lymph node and tumor tissue for long-term remission and lung tumor elimination in this form of metastasized breast cancer.