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Figure: Schematic illustration of cellulose nanocrystals using their engineered charged, furry extensions to capture chemotherapeutic drugs
.
Source: Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation
Cancer affects millions of people globally each year; more than 39% of men and women are diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime
.
Chemotherapy is the most commonly used standard cancer treatment, and targeted drug delivery can improve treatment outcomes
Several proposed approaches have attempted to remove unwanted chemotherapy drugs, particularly the widely used drug doxorubicin (DOX), from the blood
.
However, these methods result in an insufficiently low level of DOX removal
A collaborative team of scientists from Penn State and the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) has devised a way to address these challenges
.
The method, described in Materials Today Chemistry , is based on hairy cellulose nanocrystals—nanoparticles developed from the main component of plant cell walls and engineered to extend massive polymer chains from both ends "Mao"
.
These hairs increase the potential drug-trapping capabilities of the nanocrystals compared to conventional nanoparticles and other materials
To create hair-like cellulose nanocrystals capable of trapping chemotherapeutic drugs, the researchers chemically treated cellulose fibers in softwood pulp and imparted a negative charge to the hairs, making them stable against charges found in blood molecule
.
This corrects a problem with conventional nanoparticles, which become inert or decrease in charge when exposed to blood, limiting the number of positively charged drug molecules it can bind
The binding efficacy of the nanocrystals was tested in human serum, the protein-rich liquid fraction of blood
.
For every gram of hairy cellulose nanocrystals, more than 6000 mg of DOX was effectively removed in serum
Furthermore, DOX was captured immediately after the addition of nanocrystals, which had no toxic or deleterious effects on the growth of red blood cells in whole blood or human umbilical cells
.
This powerful means of trapping drugs in the body could have a huge impact on cancer treatment options, as doses can be raised to more effective levels without worrying about harmful side effects
.
Principal investigator Amir Sheikhi, assistant professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Penn State, provides an example of such an application
.
"For some organs, like the liver, chemotherapy can be delivered locally through a catheter
In addition to removing excess chemotherapeutic drugs from the body, hairy cellulose nanocrystals can also remove other unwanted substances from the body, such as toxins and addictive drugs, and experiments have also demonstrated the effectiveness of nanocrystals in other separation applications.
sex
.
Such as recovering valuable elements from e-waste
"What started as a relatively simple concept has evolved into a very efficient method of separating materials," said Ali Khademhosseini, director and CEO of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation
.
"This creates a broad and impactful biomedical and potential for material science applications
project
