Injectable-hydrogel may help treat few diseases

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has created a new hydrogel that can be implanted without surgery and deliver drugs over specific time periods, reported Tech Times. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Currently, gel-based solutions are used to release drugs into specific tissues in the body over a long period of time. Such gels are advantageous over liquid versions, which disperse drugs or medications into the body immediately, according to a press release.

Most conventional drug-delivering hydrogels make use of the strong, sturdy chemical bonds between polymers, which are essentially extremely long chains of monomer molecules – similar to what soft contact lenses are made of, according to the release. These strong bonds allow the gel to withstand long-term use, but this means that its shape cannot be changed during implantation; surgery is often required.

The new hydrogel is injectable and malleable due to its chemical makeup, which consists of nanoparticles called PEG-PLA copolymers and cellulose, also a form of polymer. The bonds between both components are rather weak, softening under physical stress, but are able to reform in the absence of it, as each molecule matches up with new partners, reported Tech Times. In a sense, the gel is able to heal itself.

“Now you have a gel that can change shape when you apply stress to it, and then, importantly, it can re-heal when you relax those forces. That allows you to squeeze it through a syringe or a needle and get it into the body without surgery," says one of the lead authors, Mark Tibbitt of the MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, according to a press release.

The gel may be programmed to release drugs for up to several months after a single injection alone. Furthermore, the properties of each substance in the gel may be fine-tuned to release up to two different drugs at different rates, allowing doctors to create ‘customised’ treatments.

Researchers are now looking at three potential applications in particular. The gel may be injected directly into the eye to treat macular degeneration, an eye disease that causes vision loss. It may also help deliver drugs to repair damaged tissue after a patient has suffered a heart attack.

Most excitingly, it has the potential to deliver drugs that target residual tumour cells that were not killed during surgery and could form new tumours. “Removing the tumour leaves behind a cavity that you could fill with our material, which would provide some therapeutic benefit over the long term in recruiting and killing those cells,” says Eric Appel, also a lead author, according to the release.

Further links:
Medicalnewstoday.com
Techtimes.com
Eurekalert.org