Ultrasound-Mediated Drug Delivery

The goal of this research is to develop a robust, ultrasound-mediated method for targeted delivery of compounds into cells for cancer treatment and other applications. Ultrasound can be temporally and spatially controlled, and can be safely applied repeatedly if needed, thus provides a non-invasive means of boosting intracellular drug delivery that can be more advantageous for clinical applications. However, challenges remain for the development of ultrasound-mediated delivery strategy in part because the intravenously injected drug is difficult to localize in effective concentrations at the target site, and the mechanism of sonoporation is not completely understood. As a result, consistent and controllable outcome of ultrasound delivery has not been attained. In this research we use an interdisciplinary approach to develop a local ultrasound-mediated drug release system where the site-specific release of the drug from an injectable, biodegradable polymer matrix will be driven by ultrasound, and the drug uptake into the cell will be enhanced by ultrasound-induced sonoporation. We hypothesize that drug release and cell uptake of the drug will be superior to either an implant working via passive diffusion or sonoporation following intravenous drug administration. Our central hypothesis for this research is therefore as follows: Ultrasound can be used successfully in combination with site-specific drug delivery as a highly-controllable targeted delivery strategy of drugs, proteins, genes, and other compounds into viable cells and organs for therapeutic purposes. The successful completion of this research will establish a solid foundation for developing an US-based strategy for targeted delivery of compounds into cells and organs for cancer therapy.

Collaborator and project Co- PI: Cheri Deng, Ph.D., Department of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University