There are many hurdles to overcome before a drug molecule can be delivered to a desired organ or location in the body, and while this route is easy for patients, safe, and effective, there are many obstacles to overcome before a drug molecule can be delivered to a desired organ or location in the Your body does a good job of keeping foreign molecule and parasites out, and this is not always a bad thing. Ensuring drugs are absorbed at levels high enough to elicit a desired therapeutic outcome can be difficult. One of the main parameters to assess drug performance is bioavailability, which is the fraction of dosed drug that reaches systemic circulation.
Drug absorption in the GI tract is one of the factors that affect high bioavailability. High dose can be dangerous and result in unneeded side effects. It's hard to achieve efficient absorption through this route.
Researchers are looking at new and innovative ways to enhance drug absorption. In a recent study published in Advanced Science, a collaborative team of researchers led by Professors LiangfangZhang and JosephWang from the University of California San Diego report the development of a unique microstirring pill platform. Wang said that they have been working on using micromotor-based active transport to improve the delivery of drugs for over a decade.
We are trying to bridge the field of microrobots with the pharmaceutical industry. Our goal is to increase the bioavailability of oral drugs by incorporating a built-in stirring capability into traditional drug tablets. Wang reached out toZhang who is an expert in drug design and delivery to accomplish this.
They theorize that by including microstirrers into a pharmaceutical pill, they could increase the drug's dissolution and dispersion in the stomach. If we want to calm any misapprehensions, we need to remove the images of a pill from your mind. The smart pill platform developed in the current study is more elegant, subtle, and, of course, safer than that platform.
Wang said that the self-stirring pills cause no damage to the stomach. The pill contains microengines made from 25-m Mg microparticles that were partially coated with titanium dioxide. The fabrication process leaves a small opening in the particle's structure through which microbubbles generated via an internal chemical reaction can exit.
According to Wang,Embedding stirrers into a pill matrix offers faster pill dissolution and disintegration. Drug loading is unaffected by the microstirrer since the encapsulated drugs and microstirrers are decoupled. The enhanced pills greatly improved the absorption of aspirin, both immediately post administration and at longer time scales.
Wang said that they anticipate a high likelihood of clinical translation of the technology. The concept of adding synthetic microstirrers to the pill can be applied to many types of oral drugs. A Microstirring Pill Enhances Bioavailability of Orally Administered Drugs, Advanced Science is a reference.
It was published in the August issue of the Advs."
