SUMMARY: UCLA researchers in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and Radiological Sciences have developed a cellulose-based nanomaterial for removing excess chemotherapy drugs from the body to reduce the side-effects of cancer therapy. BACKGROUND: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, affecting millions of people every year in the United States alone. While chemotherapy remains one of the most common cancer treatments used in the clinic, the severe side effects associated with chemotherapy drugs impose serious concerns to cancer patients. Many chemotherapeutics kill cancer cells by targeting processes that are upregulated in cancer due to the increased metabolic activity associated with rapidly dividing malignant cells. Unfortunately, many of these processes are also conserved amongst healthy cells, leading to the well-characterized toxicity associated with administration of chemotherapeutics. In recent developments, chemotherapeutics have been developed that are better able to localize to the location of need to maximize the drug effects; however, the drug then circulates throughout the human body systems, causing collateral damage to healthy tissue. Further complicating treatment with chemotherapeutics is the difficulty in determining the narrow, patient-specific range of drug dosage that balances safety and efficacy. One method that has shown promise overcoming these limitations involves removing excess circulating drug using absorbents. Currently the adsorbents available to patients are inefficient in removing the excess drugs. Therefore, there exists a great need for a new material that can effectively capture and remove excess chemotherapy drugs. INNOVATION: UCLA researchers in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and Radiological Sciences have developed a highly efficient cellulose-based nanoadsorbent. This new nanoadsorbent captures doxorubicin (DOX), one of the most widely used chemotherapy drugs, without imposing any cytotoxicity and hemolytic effects. It can remove excess drugs at a capacity that is more than 3200% higher than other nanoadsorbents, such as DNA-based platforms. Moreover, the nanoadsorbent remains highly efficient at varying pH, ionic strength, ion type, and protein concentration. Therefore, this technology can provide a preferable solution to reducing the side-effects of cancer therapy.
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: ● Remove excess chemotherapy drugs to reduce side-effects for cancer patients. ADVANTAGES: ● highly efficient compared to currently available absorbents ● can be used as in vitro and in vivo drug capture additives and devices DEVELOPMENT-TO-DATE: The technology has been developed and tested in cells under a wide range of physiological conditions.