Yale Drug-Loaded Nanogel Delivers Combination Cancer Therapy

by GENE OSTROVSKY on Jul 19, 2012 • 12:18 pmNanolipogel administering its immunotherapy cargo. The light-blue spheres within the blood vessels and the cutaway sphere in the foreground are the nanolipogels. (Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, NSF) Researchers from Yale and Howard Hughes Medical Institute are reporting in journal Nature Materials on a novel newbiodegradable nanogel that is capable of delivering two complementary therapeutic agents to tumors.Cytokine is used to promote immune activity around the target site and a small-molecule inhibitor interferes with the cancer's response to the immune system. The current molecule combination is showing effectiveness in fighting metastatic melanomas, but other drug combinations should be deliverable by the new nanogel to provide therapy for a variety of cancers. "We believe this is a paradigm-changing immunotherapeutic method for cancer therapy," said Tarek M. Fahmy, a bioengineer at Yale and the project's principal investigator. "In essence, it's a one-two punch strategy that seems to work well for melanoma and may work even better with other cancers."In tests on live mice, the double-loaded particle, called a nanogel, significantly delayed tumor growth and increased survival, the researchers report. They administered the nanogels intravenously and, in separate experiments, directly into the tumors.Further animal tests are planned.The main challenge researchers faced was devising a particle that enabled gradual, sustained release of two therapeutic agents with very different properties: the protein, which readily dissolves in the body, and the small-molecule drug, which doesn't.They exclusively used components already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This could potentially expedite future experiments with other ingredients and human trials, they said.