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September 2023
By: Cici Zhu
Some medical conditions can be treated with a short-term therapeutic drug course; others, however, have much longer-lasting effects and require long-term drug treatments. To make these extended drug courses easier to deliver, University of Galway and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed an implantable drug administration device capable of providing long-term therapeutic drug delivery tailored to the recipient.
Previous implantable medical devices have faced one significant issue—when the foreign body is introduced to a patient’s body, the body may reject or react in a way that inhibits the function of the implant. Specifically, the human body’s response to the intrusion of a foreign body includes the formation of scar tissue around it, otherwise known as fibrosis. When this happens in response to the implantation of a drug delivery device, the scar tissue blocks the drugs being released and prevents them from reaching the rest of the body.
However, using soft robotics and artificial intelligence, the research teams created a ‘smart’ device with the ability to sense and respond to changes in its environment, thereby bypassing the effects of fibrosis. In the smart device developed by the research team, a conductive porous membrane senses when scar tissue is blocking the pores by detecting electrical signal blockages caused by the scar tissue cells. Then, in a process known as mechanotherapy, the device reduces the fibrosis response by performing regular, timed movements within the body, such as inflating and deflating.
The device is powered by a machine learning algorithm designed to predict the number of movements and force required to bypass any amount of scar tissue buildup to achieve consistent drug administration, and it moves/changes shape and adjusts the drug dosage accordingly. Therefore, rather than being a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, this device is able to detect and respond to the reaction of each individual patient’s body, allowing for personalized adjustments to effectively maintain precise and consistent drug delivery.
This breakthrough exposes a wide range of new possibilities in the treatment of chronic diseases that require the continuous administration of therapeutic drugs. For instance, individuals affected by diabetes may receive consistent doses of insulin for extended time periods with the use of the self-adapting implantable device, rather than having to regularly administer insulin into their bodies. Thus, the potential avenues that further research and development of this device opens up will undoubtedly significantly improve the quality of life of patients afflicted by chronic conditions.
References
Robertson, S. (2023, February 24). What is Fibrosis?. https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Fibrosis.aspx
ScienceDirect. (2012). Fibrous Encapsulation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/fibrous-encapsulation
University of Galway. (2023, August 30). AI enabled soft robotic implant monitors scar tissue to self-adapt for personalized drug treatment. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230830151740.htm
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