A salty delivery for cancer
Giving medicine is not without risk. When applying chemotherapy, the side effects can be severe as the drugs that are being provide are not selective for cancer cells but also affect healthy cells. While on the one hand the aim for making the drug selective but on the other hand they can also help the drugs to be released at the location where it is needed while remaining safely stored when being somewhere else inside the body. This allows to use the drugs already available but diminishing the undesired side effects. The Hydrotalcite particles produced by KISUMA Chemicals are able to do just that but are not yet used in this fashion. Currently, the hydrotalcite is used as a filler material for commercial polymer materials such as PVC but together with the department of Biomedical Engineering, the van Rijn-group, the repurposing of these particles are being explored in this newly astablished partnership.
The new particles would tremendously affect the health of cancer patients and enables faster recovery providing a better quality of life, less hospitalisation days, more societal productivity/participation. Therefore, upon successful completion, this project would provide a high social economical impact.
The particles used are layered planar nanoparticles in which drugs can be stored and shielded from the environment. The particles keep the drugs until it reaches the desired local site where the cancer develops, which is associated with a change in local lower pH. This triggers the particles to release the drugs. By only releasing it as those side will diminish unwanted side effects elsewhere in the body keeping the patient in better health.
