iit: IIT-Delhi researchers develop technology to reduce chemo side-effects | Delhi News
NEW DELHI: Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi have developed a technology for chemotherapy applications using the red blood cell membrane, which will help in personalised therapy and also reduce side-effects.
According to senior officials of the institute, the technology involves engineering the RBCs in the lab to produce smaller biocompatible vesicles. "Drug molecules can simply be trapped inside the particle's lipid bilayer and circulate for a longer time. At present, few synthetic nanoparticles being used in nanomedicine suffer from short circulation times and are often associated with non-specific toxicity," they said.
The research work by professor Neetu Singh and Sahil Malhotra from IIT Delhi's Centre for Biomedical Engineering utilises the long circulating nature of the RBCs to address a long standing problem of drug delivery, of substantially prolonged drug circulation by delaying the recognition by immune cells.
Delving further into the research, Singh said, "The concept here utilises body's own cells to load multiple drugs at the same time and reach the tumour sites in significant concentrations. Interestingly, this nano-RBCs platform has synthetic tenability similar to other polymeric systems or the commonly used liposomes but have proved to be more efficacious."
Singh further explained, "We were intrigued by nature's own oxygen delivery vehicle, the RBCs, as these are also the longest circulating cells. However, achieving complete control over the physical and chemical properties of a natural system similar to the way we can control a synthetic system is challenging. Over the last few years, we have successfully demonstrated the utilisation of RBCs for drug delivery and developed strategies where the naturally derived vesicles can be tuned for various applications."
According to senior officials of the institute, the technology involves engineering the RBCs in the lab to produce smaller biocompatible vesicles. "Drug molecules can simply be trapped inside the particle's lipid bilayer and circulate for a longer time. At present, few synthetic nanoparticles being used in nanomedicine suffer from short circulation times and are often associated with non-specific toxicity," they said.
The research work by professor Neetu Singh and Sahil Malhotra from IIT Delhi's Centre for Biomedical Engineering utilises the long circulating nature of the RBCs to address a long standing problem of drug delivery, of substantially prolonged drug circulation by delaying the recognition by immune cells.
Delving further into the research, Singh said, "The concept here utilises body's own cells to load multiple drugs at the same time and reach the tumour sites in significant concentrations. Interestingly, this nano-RBCs platform has synthetic tenability similar to other polymeric systems or the commonly used liposomes but have proved to be more efficacious."
Singh further explained, "We were intrigued by nature's own oxygen delivery vehicle, the RBCs, as these are also the longest circulating cells. However, achieving complete control over the physical and chemical properties of a natural system similar to the way we can control a synthetic system is challenging. Over the last few years, we have successfully demonstrated the utilisation of RBCs for drug delivery and developed strategies where the naturally derived vesicles can be tuned for various applications."
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