Stories about: biomaterials

The softer the nanoparticle, the better the drug delivery to tumors

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Kat J. McAlpine

More On: biomaterials, cancer, cancer treatment, drug delivery, Marsha Moses, mechanobiology, nanoparticles, nanotechnology, tumors, vascular biology, Vascular Biology Program

Nanolipogels, pictured here, are a promising drug delivery system — Nanolipogels of different stiffness, as seen through a transmission electron microscope. Credit: Moses lab/Boston Children’s Hospital.

For the first time, scientists have shown that the elasticity of nanoparticles can affect how cells take them up in ways that can significantly improve drug delivery to tumors.

A team of Boston Children’s Hospital researchers led by Marsha A. Moses, PhD, who directs the Vascular Biology Program, created a novel nanolipogel-based drug delivery system that allowed the team to investigate the exclusive role of nanoparticle elasticity on the mechanisms of cell entry.

Their findings — that softer nanolipogels more efficiently enter cells using a different internalization pathway than their stiffer counterparts — were recently published in Nature Communications. …

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Meeting an unmet need: A surgical implant that grows with a child

Posted on October 10, 2017October 12, 2017 by Kat J. McAlpine

Posted in Devices, Innovation, Pediatrics, Science

More On: bioengineering, biomaterials, congenital heart defects, heart surgery, medical devices, pediatric devices, Pedro del Nido

Depiction of a growth-accommodating implant expanding in sync with a child's growing heart. — Artist’s rendering showing how a braided, tubular implant could grow in sync with a child’s heart valve. Credit: Randal McKenzie

Medical implants can save lives by correcting structural defects in the heart and other organs. But until now, the use of medical implants in children has been complicated by the fact that fixed-size implants cannot expand in tune with a child’s natural growth.

To address this unmet surgical need, a team of researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a growth-accommodating implant designed for use in a cardiac surgical procedure called a valve annuloplasty, which repairs leaking mitral and tricuspid valves in the heart. The innovation was reported today in Nature Biomedical Engineering. …

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Pediatric heart surgeons eye sticky, stretchy, slug-inspired adhesive

Posted on August 2, 2017August 2, 2017 by Nancy Fliesler

Posted in Devices

More On: biomaterials, cardiac surgery, Nikolay Vasilyev, surgical adhesive

*Arion subfiscus*, whose sticky mucus inspired the new surgical adhesive (H. Crisp/Wikimedia Commons)

It’s been a challenge to develop a surgical adhesive that sticks to wet surfaces and isn’t toxic. But it turns out a certain kind of slug is very good at secreting a sticky mucus that glues fast, apparently as a defense mechanism.

That provided the inspiration for a hydrogel “super” adhesive that could supplant surgical sutures, at least for some operations, and help medical devices stay in place. Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), led by David Mooney, PhD, report that the adhesive bound strongly to a variety of animal tissues, including skin, cartilage, artery, liver and heart.

Nikolay Vasilyev, MD, a coauthor on the paper, is interested in the adhesive’s potential for young patients with congenital heart disease. He is is a research scientist in Cardiac Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital, and led cardiac studies in pig models. …

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