3D printed magnetic pills promise targeted cancer treatment

Researchers at Sussex University looking at the development of 3D printed magnetic pills say they could pave the way for a new era of targeted therapies.

In collaboration with a team at The University of Texas at Austin, the group from Sussex University’s School of Life Sciences has used 3D printing technology and magnetic actuation to prove the concept of a drug release system triggered by magnetic fields capable of inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells in vitro, according to Laboratory News.

The research is still in the initial phases, but the teams are working towards driving the drug delivery system to the required position in the body with the use of external means such as permanent magnets.

The innovative drug delivery system could help eliminate many of the harmful side effects caused by treatments such as chemotherapy, which damage neighbouring healthy cells, and also help clinicians calculate an optimum dosage of drugs.

In a study on the work published in the August edition of Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces, the group describes how it designed and built a  magnetically triggerable device composed of a magnetic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sponge cylinder and a 3D printed reservoir containing the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil.

The 3D printed device would be switched on and off as required through the use of magnetic fields. The study demonstrated how by varying the intensity of the magnetic fields, the internal magnetic sponge will be compressed to different ratios, this releasing different by specific amounts of the drug.

Furthermore, in vitro cell culture studies demonstrated that the stronger the magnetic field applied, the higher the dosage of the drugs released, and the greater inhibition effects on cancer cell growth.

Kejing Shi, doctoral researcher in Sussex University’s School of Life Sciences and lead author of the study said: “The device offers the potential for personalised treatment through the loading of a given drug in a particular concentration and releasing it within different dosage patterns.

“All results confirmed that the device can provide a safe, long-term, triggerable and re-utilisable way for localised disease treatments such as cancer.”

Dr Elizabeth-Rendon Morales, Senior Lecturer in Engineering at the University of Sussex’s School of Engineering and Informatics, said: “Fine-tuning and characterising the device performance allows the system being capable of releasing the drug within different dosage patterns thus, having the potential to offer personalized treatment.”

The study’s co-author Prof. Ali Nokhodchi, added that the device has the potential to be used in treatments for cancer, diabetes, pain, and myocardial infarction.

“This device has the potential to be used in treatments which require variable release kinetics where patients suffer from discomfort or inconvenience if they currently rely on untunable monotonic drug treatment.” He said.

The researchers said in a statement that this kind of smart treatment could be available for patients in hospitals within a decade.

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