Site selective chemotherapeutic releasing vehicles for controlled delivery

Chemotherapy is a very common way to treat various forms of cancer. This method can have very heavy side effects and can also make the patient very sick which has a negative impact on recovery. A possible solution to drastically reduce these side effects is to effectively deliver only the chemotherapy to the site where it needs to do its job. This is being done in this project through the use of so-called hydrotalcites, very small flat nanoparticles around which drugs can be stored.

These drugs are expected to be released because of the acidity around the tumor while in the rest of the body the drug remains in the particles. This selective approach reduces side effects and increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy. The hydrotalcites are used in the medical world as antacids and to make them suitable for chemotherapy various aspects have to be investigated such as: clumping of particles in water, entrapment and release of drugs, uptake in cells and toxicity. It was found that entrapment succeeds according to general protocols and that there is a selective release depending on acidity. While the particles like to clump together in water, which makes it unsuitable for administration in humans, this behavior is counteracted and seems better suited for administration in the bloodstream. These results serve as important prerequisites to study the follow-up study towards uptake by cells and toxicity.