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Fantastic Voyage A World First: Nanobots Deliver Anti-Cancer Drug By Remote-Control

Wednesday, March 16, 2011 7:27

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Fantastic Voyage: from science fiction to reality? École Polytechnique de Montréal researchers successfully control and navigate a wireless device inside an artery using a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, paving the way for novel, minimally invasive and more accurate surgeries.

Some 40 years after the release of the classic science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage, researchers in the NanoRobotics Laboratory of École Polytechnique de Montréal’s Department of Computer Engineering and Institute of Biomedical Engineering have achieved a major technological breakthrough in the field of medical robotics. They have succeeded for the first time in guiding, in vivo and via computer control, a microdevice inside an artery, at a speed of 10 centimetres a second.

Soon, drug delivery that precisely targets cancerous cells without exposing the healthy surrounding tissue to the medication’s toxic effects will no longer be an oncologist’s dream but a medical reality, thanks to the work of Professor Sylvain Martel, Director of the Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal.

Professor Sylvain Martel, Director of the Nanorobotics Laboratory

Credit: Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal.

Known for being the world’s first researcher to have guided a magnetic sphere through a living artery, Professor Martel is announcing a spectacular new breakthrough in the field of nanomedicine. Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, his team successfully guided microcarriers loaded with a dose of anti-cancer drug through the bloodstream of a living rabbit, right up to a targeted area in the liver, where the drug was successfully administered. This is a medical first that will help improve chemoembolization, a current treatment for liver cancer.

Microcarriers on a mission

The therapeutic magnetic microcarriers (TMMCs) were developed by Pierre Pouponneau, a PhD candidate under the joint direction of Professors Jean-Christophe Leroux and Martel. These tiny drug-delivery agents, made from biodegradable polymer and measuring 50 micrometers in diameter — just under the breadth of a hair — encapsulate a dose of a therapeutic agent (in this case, doxorubicin) as well as magnetic nanoparticles.

Nanobots Guided Through Blood Vessels

Credit: Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal.

Essentially tiny magnets, the nanoparticles are what allow the upgraded MRI system to guide the microcarriers through the blood vessels to the targeted organ. During the experiments, the TMMCs injected into the bloodstream were guided through the hepatic artery to the targeted part of the liver where the drug was progressively released. The results of these in-vivo experiments have recently been published in the prestigious journal Biomaterials and the patent describing this technology has just been issued in the United States.

The Nanorobotics Laboratory, which aims to develop new platforms for medical intervention, works closely with interventional radiologist Dr. Gilles Soulez and his team of the Imaging Research Platform at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal Research Centre to develop medical protocols adapted for future use on humans.

Dr. Martel and his team receive financial support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Canada Research Chair (CRC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies (FQRNT) and the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ).

3D virtual animation of targeted drug delivery using an MRI based platform

Credit: Nanorobotics Laboratory at Polytechnique Montréal.

About Polytechnique Montréal

Founded in 1873, Polytechnique Montréal is one of Canada’s leading engineering university institutions in terms of both teaching and research. It is also the largest engineering university in Québec for the size of its student body and the scope of its research activities. With over 37,000 graduates, Polytechnique Montréal has trained nearly 30% of the current members of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec. Polytechnique provides training in 14 engineering specialties, has 230 professors and over 6,700 students. It has an annual operating budget of more than $100 million, in addition to a $70-million research fund.

Contacts and sources:

Annie Touchette
Communications and recruitment department
Polytechnique Montréal

Polytechnique Montréal’s Nanorobotics Laboratory:

Media information: Andrée Peltier
Citation : Pouponneau, P., Leroux, J.-C., Soulez, G., Gaboury, L. and Martel, S. (2011). Co-encapsulation of magnetic nanoparticles and doxorubicin into biodegradable microcarriers for deep tissue targeting by vascular MRI navigation. Biomaterials. Volume 32, Issue 13, May 2011, Pages 3481-3486. (DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2010.12.059)

March 16, 2007, Fantastic Voyage: from Science Fiction to Reality?

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