A process called microencapsulation could allow a major step forward in therapies against various forms of cancer. It consists in the production of micro-balloons containing specific combinations of anti-cancer drugs that can be injected into specific parts of the patient’s body to administer therapies targeted with very strong limitations of the side effects. The experiments that allowed the development of this process were carried out on the International Space Station.
Dr. Dennis Morrison was the lead NASA researcher in the study of Microencapsulation Electrostatic Processing System-II (MEPS-II) and is now vice-president and director of microencapsulation research and development of NuVue Therapeutics, Inc. so he knows perfectly the subject. The problem he and his colleagues faced in the creation of microcapsules is given by the different densities of liquids and to solve it they needed to have experiments carried out in microgravity conditions.
On the International Space Station it was possible to put together two liquids that don’t mix on Earth – 80% water and 20% oil – in a way that led to the formation of spherical microcapsules surrounded by a semi-permeable outer membrane. That’s because in a state of microgravity these liquids tend to assume spherical shapes due to surface tension.
The experiments performed in microgravity allowed to understand how to control the behavior of liquids so that they could form spherical microcapsules on Earth. When the technology to achieve this results has been developed, it was possible to move to the stage of experimentation to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring the MEPS-II system to a commercial stage.
NuVue Therapeutics, Inc. intends to use the MEPS-II system to administer very targeted therapies against various forms of cancer. The microcapsules allow to include a combination of drugs tailored to a specific patient and can be created in order to be released with a predetermined timing to optimize their therapeutic effects.
Another benefit compared to the classic types of chemotherapy consists in the possibility of injecting the microcapsules in the area affected by the disease. In this way, their toxic effects will be confined to that area, strongly limiting their side effects.
It will still take time to obtain all the necessary approvals to use the MEPS-II technology in the U.S.A. and even more so in other countries but the results could be huge. All this is thanks to research carried out on the International Space Station, one of many in the field of medicine.
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