Localized Delivery of an Anticancer Agent by Remote-Controlled Microcarriers

Drug delivery that precisely targets cancerous cells without exposing the healthy surrounding tissue to the drug's toxic effects will soon become a medical reality.

Famous for being the world's first researcher to have guided a magnetic sphere through a living artery, Prof. Sylvain Martel, director of the Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal (Canada), reported on a remarkable new breakthrough in the field of nanomedicine. Utilizing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, his team effectively guided microcarriers loaded with a dose of anticancer drug through the bloodstream of a living rabbit, right up to a targeted area in the liver, where the drug was successfully administered. This is a medical first that will help improve chemoembolization, a current treatment for liver cancer.

The therapeutic magnetic microcarriers (TMMCs) were developed by Pierre Pouponneau, a PhD candidate under the joint direction of Prof. Jean-Christophe Leroux and Prof. Martel. These drug-delivery agents, made from biodegradable polymer and measuring 50 μm in diameter, encapsulate a dose of a therapeutic agent (in this instance, doxorubicin) as well as magnetic nanoparticles. Essentially tiny magnets, the nanoparticles are what allow the upgraded MRI system to guide the microcarriers through the blood vessels to the targeted organ. During the study, the TMMCs injected into the bloodstream were guided through the hepatic artery to the targeted part of the liver where the drug was progressively released. The findings of this in vivo research have been published online March 16, 2011, and in the May 2011 issue of the journal Biomaterials, and the patent describing this technology has just been issued in the United States.

The Nanorobotics Laboratory, which goal is to develop new platforms for medical intervention, works closely with interventional radiologist Dr. Gilles Soulez and his team of the Imaging Research Platform at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal Research Center to develop medical protocols adapted for future use on humans.

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Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal