Apr 12 2019
People are likely to develop an inflammatory condition somewhere in the body at some point in their life. The causes of inflammation as well as the treatment are very different. Certain types of inflammation vanish on their own, whereas others require medical treatment.
Medical treatment is only effective if the active substances in the medication are conveyed to the correct place. This is termed as drug delivery. For instance, if a patient needs to have medication sent to the liver, it is crucial that the medicine is made in such a way that it is not absorbed before it gets to the liver.
One of the big difficulties in the field of drug delivery is to get the active molecules to the correct organ, preventing them from being absorbed elsewhere than the inflamed area. Now, chemist Jasmin Mecinovic from the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, along with his international contemporaries, has formulated a new technique of conveying these molecules.
Chemistry that acts as a crane arm
In a research that was published in Nature Chemistry on January 21st, 2019, they explain how a so-called “slider” can serve as an arm on a lifting crane and in this way gather small packages of molecules. The slider is a small molecule as well.
It can rest on a polymer strand, which typically looks like boiled spaghetti in its shape. There are several polymer strands in organic material, and the slider can, thus, jump from one polymer to the next - and even further to other polymers, all while transporting this molecular package with it.
Visualize that the molecular package is a medical element to be conveyed to, for instance, the kidneys, and then the slider can carry the package across the body by jumping from polymer to polymer until it gets to the kidneys. This is what Mecinovic and his colleagues learned.
Magnetic attraction keeps the molecules in place
Mecinovic, along with his colleagues, has formulated a theory for how the slider can, in reality, use a polymer as a vehicle. The chemical process utilizes a connection with negative and positive charges, which most people are aware of from refrigerator magnets.
The slider’s negative ions, i.e. the atoms with an extra electron, will stick to the positive ions on the polymer’s surface. The scientists have learned that the laws of chemistry permit the slider to jump between numerous polymers.
Laboratory tests confirm the model
The scientists did not just demonstrate that it was feasible in theory. They also confirmed the model with the help of computer simulations that artificially imitate reality. Here, they discovered that the transportation could work in real-world. This was then verified when the research team examined it with gel in the lab in the Netherlands.
One thing is that it functions in liquids where polymers float easily, but gel is a tougher material that -in many aspects- is similar to a human body from a chemically mechanical standpoint.
This may result in the use of Mecinovic and his colleagues' technique of creating even more precise drug delivery to be used in treating inflammatory diseases.
The study was partnership between scientists from universities in the Netherlands, the United States, and Denmark.