Scientists find polymer-coated nanoparticles together with therapeutic drugs offer promise for cancer treatment, including treatment for ovarian cancer. According to Science Daily, these nanoparticles may be targeted to tumors where their payloads are released. The process mostly eliminates the side effects of traditional chemotherapy.
Professor Paula Hammond, together with her students, have created a variety of these particles. The team developed a process called layer-by-layer assembly demonstrating that the particles can impact cancer in mouse models.
Preparing for Human Use
In preparing for human use, the researchers now use a manufacturing technique that creates more particles in less time. Professor Hammond is especially pleased with their recent success working with animal models and spoke of their progress in ovarian cancer treatment.
The Professor, who is a member of Integrative Cancer Research at Koch Institute, commented that eventually the process must be brought to scale so that companies have adequate manufacturing capacity.
About the New Study
Professor Hammond together with Darrell Irvine, a professor of microbiology at Scripps Institute are senior authors of the new study that was recently published in Advanced Functional Materials. The lead authors of the paper are Ivan Pires and Ezra Gordon with Heikyung Suh of MIT also an author.
The Process
During the past decade, Professor Hammond’s lab created a process that builds nanoparticles allowing layers with varied properties to be laid down on the surface of a nanoparticle. This alternately exposes the surface to polymers that are negatively and positively charged.
Using Professor Hammond ‘s original process of applying layers separately, excess polymer is removed through centrifugation. Yet according to the researchers, this process is not appropriate for large scale production.
An Alternate Approach
The researchers used a microfluidic mixing device that eliminates the most time-consuming step in the system. The device allows the sequential addition of new polymer layers with particles flowing through a microchannel in the device.
Using this approach, the researchers can generate 15 milligrams of nanoparticles (about fifty doses) in a few minutes. The original technique would take close to an hour to create fifty doses. This process could enable the production of sufficient particles for patient use and for clinical trials.
A New Production Technique
The lab used nanoparticles coated with interleukin-12 cytokines. The team had previously shown that IL-12 delivered by nanoparticles will activate key immune cells and will also slow ovarian tumor growth in mice. The nanoparticles not only bind to cancer tissue but also appear to have the ability to avoid entering the cancer cells, thereby acting as markers. In mouse models of ovarian cancer, this treatment leads to both delay of tumor growth and possible cures.
A patent has now been filed on the new technology. The team of researchers are currently working with MIT’s DTCI to form a company that will commercialize the technology.
