Researchers develop therapeutic nanoparticles beyond delivery

A group of University of Ottawa researchers have already shown how scientists can harness gene therapies to deliver nano-sized treatments for cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases. Unfortunately, the delivery agents in the process do not possess any therapeutic potential and ultimately degrade after acting as the messenger.

So, the researchers asked: can we not develop nanoparticle platforms to be more than just mules? 

Since millions of particles are injected to deliver each dose, we thought it would be good if they could do more than just deliver the therapeutic agents. Our proof-of-concept study might be the first one to show that particles can do more than just deliver and can contribute to treatment. It's more like we are arming them."

Dr. Suresh Gadde, Lead Author, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine

Nanomedicines and nanoparticles-based drug delivery systems (NPs) encapsulate a wide variety of drugs with different physicochemical properties. They protect the drugs and deliver them to specific organs or tissues. Their ability to encapsulate, protect, and deliver RNA-based agents intracellularly has allowed scientists to harness the potential of mRNA technology for a variety of disease treatments. The success of various mRNA COVID-19 vaccines highlights the importance of NPs.

However, in all these cases, NP platforms are mainly used as delivery vehicles to deliver drugs and therapeutic agents. After the delivery of the drugs/mRNA, nanoparticles typically degrade despite more than millions (if not billions) of particles being delivered into the body.

Dr. Gadde's G-INCs Lab is at the forefront of developing nano-sized tools to develop NPs platforms with intrinsic therapeutic potential and drug delivery capacity to enhance the NPs' delivery capacity and therapeutic capability. Now, this team has gone one step further by showing how these same delivery agents can provide a benefit in themselves with built-in bioactivity to go with cargo delivery.

"We thought it would be good if these millions of nanoparticles do something more than degrade," Gadde says. "We developed empty/blank nanoparticles that can drive macrophages towards pro-inflammatory."

Such a concept could have significant implications for drug development, including leading to more targeted, personalized treatments of complex illnesses such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.