Pharmacy researchers work to improve drug delivery
The research, which is being led by Ravikumar Majeti, PhD, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the Texas A&M Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, draws on previous knowledge in order to create the new drug carrier.
The approach – targeted nanosystem drug delivery – allows for improved drug delivery and has been popular in modern pharmacology.
According to the report, which was published late last week, the current methods for targeted drug delivery use ligands that must out-compete endogenous ligands in order to bind to the active site facilitating the transport.
To address this limitation, the researchers suggest a non-competitive active transport strategy, which is able to overcome intestinal barriers.
"These nanosystems have the ability to cross the intestinal barrier to reach other parts of the body and stay in circulation for a long time,” said Majeti. The system is also able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier.
"The way we put these things together is completely novel. This approach enables the development of carrier systems that have no equivalent in the world of competitive ligands,” added Majeti.
According to the researchers, they are also abale to fine-tune the nanosystems to match a specific disease, adjusting the drug release times depending on the patient’s needs.
Source: Scientific Reports
Title: The Next Generation Non-competitive Active Polyester Nanosystems for Transferrin Receptor-mediated Peroral Transport Utilizing Gambogic Acid as a Ligand
Authors: P. Saini, R. Ganugula, M. Arora & M. N. V. Ravi Kumar
DOI :10.1038/srep29501
