Alle Storys
Folgen
Keine Story von Technische Universität München mehr verpassen.

Technische Universität München

Active droplets: Long-lasting and precise dosing of medication thanks to an oil-hydrogel mixture

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH

Corporate Communications Center

phone: +49 89 289 10510 - e-mail: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de

This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/35918/

High resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1538709

NEWS RELEASE

Active droplets

Long-lasting and precise dosing of medication thanks to an oil-hydrogel mixture

Using a mixture of oil droplets and hydrogel, medical active agents can be not only precisely dosed, but also continuously administered over periods of up to several days. The active agents inside the active droplets are released at a constant rate, decreasing the risk of over- or underdosage.

Actually, Prof. Job Boekhoven was studying the origins of life: Together with his team at the Technical University of Munich TUM, the chemist wanted to understand how molecules in the primordial ocean had managed to combine and form the precursors of the first living cells.

"In our research work we experimented with oil droplets, among other things. We were especially interested in mechanisms that protect molecules from degradation. We found that unstable molecules that form oil droplets would survive much longer than molecules that cannot form droplets. In a sense, the droplets protect the molecules inside."

However, the oily shield is not entirely impermeable: Some of the oil molecules react with the surrounding water. This hydrolysis causes the droplets to slowly but continuously lose mass and shrink until they eventually disappear. "The constant decay of these 'active droplets', led us to the idea of using them to dose drugs," recalls Boekhoven.

Safe from over- or underdosing

Pharmacologists have long sought methods for administering active agents at a constant rate. The ingredients in ointments or tablets are usually released quickly, increasing the risk of an overdose. Moreover, the fast rate of release shortens the duration of the intended effect. Methods for releasing drugs over extended periods of time at a constant rate are rare and often complicated to fabricate.

"We found that the droplets continuously release the drug while they get smaller and smaller. The consequence is that over the entire release period, the drug release rate remains constant", explains Boekhoven. "The power of this approach lies in its simplicity. You need only three components: droplets made of a hydrolyzable oil, a drug that partitions in the oil, and a hydrogel that stabilizes the position of the droplets."

Many fields of application

The new oil-hydrogel mix allows active agents to be administered not only continuously but also at a predetermined rate. The droplets can be loaded with larger or smaller doses of active substances. These are released as soon as the oil droplets come into contact with the water in blood or tissue. The hydrolysis proceeds at a constant rate until the droplets have dissipated completely.

These "active droplets" have many potential fields of application. They could, for example, be deployed in disinfectant or healing-promoting sore pads to treat poorly healing wounds. A patent application has already been filed for the oil-hydrogel material.

Publication:

Active droplets in a hydrogel release drugs with a constant and tunable rate;

Caren Wanzke, Marta Tena-Solsona, Benedikt Riess, Laura Tebcharani, Job Boekhoven;

Materials Horizons Edition, Feb. 12, 2020 - DOI: 10.1039/C9MH01822K

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/mh/c9mh01822k

More information:

The research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the context of the Transregio 235 Collaborative Research Center, the Cluster of Excellence "Origins" and via the TUM Institute for Advanced Study with funds from the German Excellence Initiative and the 7th European Framework Program.

Related press releleases:

https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/35671/

https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/34663/

https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/34081/

High resolution images:

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1538709

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Job Boekhoven

Technical University of Munich

Professorship of Supramolecular Chemistry

Lichtenbergstr. 4, 85748 Garching, Germany

Phone: +49 89 289 54400 - E-mail: job.boekhoven@tum.de

Web: http://boekhovenlab.com/

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe's leading research universities, with around 550 professors, 43,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Cairo, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012 and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany. www.tum.de

Weitere Storys: Technische Universität München
Weitere Storys: Technische Universität München
  • 10.02.2020 – 13:35

    Major project for Munich neurosciences

    TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH Corporate Communications Center phone: +49 8161 71 5403 - email: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/details/35908/ High resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1537625 NEWS RELEASE CLINSPECT-M: Clinical mass spectrometry center for molecular brain research Major project for Munich neurosciences In a joint ...

  • 30.01.2020 – 09:03

    Biological diversity as a factor of production

    TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH Corporate Communications Center phone: +49 89 289 22778 - e-mail: presse@tum.de - web: www.tum.de This text on the web: https://www.tum.de/nc/en/about-tum/news/press-releases/ High resolution images: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1536675 NEWS RELEASE Relationship between the economic value of our ecosystems and biodiversity Biological diversity as a factor of production Can the biodiversity of ...