IIT Guwahati Researchersdevelopnature derived nanomaterials for targeted delivery of cancer drugs

Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati Researchers have developed nanomaterials derived from nature to deliver drugs to the human body in a controlled and specific manner. Such biocompatible vehicles could potentially carry chemotherapy drugs directly to the cancer cells.

A research team led by Dr. Biman B. Mandal, Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati along with Dr.Jadi Praveen Kumar, Dr.RocktotpalKonwarh, Dr.Manishekhar Kumar and Mr.AnkitGangradehave studied various types of nanomaterials for use as carriers in targeted drug delivery.

The concept of targeted drugs is not new; German Nobel Laureate Paul Ehrlich proposed, in the early 1900’s, the concept of ‘MagischeKugel,’ or magic bullet – a drug that can target the disease like a missile fired towards a target.  While early developments on targeted drugs focused on treating infections, the past two decades haveseen a surge in the development of targeted drugs for cancer and other tumors.

Dr.Mandalsays,“Developments in targeted drug delivery have been driven by developments in nanomaterials.” A nanometre is one millionth of a millimetre and nanomaterials are made of particles that are 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. In chemotherapy, nanoparticles loaded with drugs can be targeted at tumor cells, bypassing healthycells, thus avoiding non-specific biodistribution, drug resistance, and unwanted adverse effects.

Nanotubes of carbon are particularly attractive for targeted drug delivery.  The IIT Guwahati research team has developed a hydrogel system made of silk and carbon nanotubes loaded with drug molecules for controlled release of drugs.  Hydrogels are polymeric networks that absorb huge volumes of water and swell. The high water content makes hydrogels similar to tissues, enhancing biocompatibility, and also allow easy encapsulation and release of drugs at targeted sites. The Guwahati Researchers combined silk with drug-loaded carbon nanotubes, which offered better mechanical strength to the silk hydrogels, in addition to enabling slow and controlled release of the drug at the target site. 

“Our injectable hybrid hydrogel system had pH, temperature, and near-infrared (NIR) light-dependent drug release properties,”added Dr. Mandal. In their work, the results of which were published recently in ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering;they used intermittent NIRlight to control the release of functionally bioactive DOX molecules attached to the hybrid hydrogel.The hybrid hydrogel is injectable and designed to serve as a reservoir for anticancer drugs at the local site of tumour. For the technology, the team has applied for patent. AnkitGangrade has co-authored this paper with Dr. Mandal.

In an earlier study, Dr. Mandal and his team used bio-derived carbon nanodots as vehicles for drug delivery.  It is attractive to produce such nanodots from biological sources to avoid the use of toxic products, and there have been attempts to produce carbon nanodots from bread, jaggery, banana, and even milk. 

In an Indian twist to these attempts, the research team produced carbon nanodots from lassi, the popular yogurt-based drink.  The researchers heated store-bought lassi in the microwave oven for about six and a half minutes and separated the carbonized portion that contained carbon nanodots. The researchers then loaded the nanodots with a model drug compound called doxorubicin (Dox).  The Dox-loaded carbon nanoparticles released the drug in response to the change in acid content in the surrounding medium.  What’s more, the drug was delivered into the target cell directly. The results from this work werepublishedin ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering last year.

Talking about the treatment methods for cancer, Dr. Biman B. Mandal, Associate Professor, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati, said,“Although conventional chemotherapy is one of the most widely used treatment methods for cancer, its drawbacks include poor bioavailability at the actual cancerous regions, which necessitates high-dose injections, and serious side effects that arise because the drugs destroy healthy cells along with the cancer cells in the body. Both these problems can be solved by delivering drugs exclusively to the target cancerous zones, and our silk-nanotube and nanodot based vehicles would serve as good carriers of such drugs.”

About IIT Guwahati

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati established in 1994 has completed 25 years of glorious existence in 2019. At present, the Institute has eleven departments and five inter-disciplinary academic centres covering all the major engineering, science and humanities disciplines, offering B.Tech., B.Des., M.A., M.Des., M.Tech., M.Sc. and Ph.D. programmes. The institute offers a residential campus to 412 faculty members and nearly 6,000 students at present. Besides its laurels in teaching and research, IIT Guwahati has been able to fulfill the aspirations of people of the North East region to a great extent since its birth which was through the Assam Accord signed in 1985 between AASU and Government of India. The campus is on a sprawling 285 hectares plot on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, around 20 kms from the heart of the Guwahati city.

IIT Guwahati is the only academic institution in India that occupied a place among the top 100 world universities – under 50 years of age – ranked by the London-based Times Higher Education (THE) in the year 2014 and continues to maintain its superior position even today in various International Rankings. Along with the older IITs and Delhi University, IIT Guwahati has been ranked below 500 in the QS World ranking released recently. IIT Guwahati has retained the 7th position among the best engineering institutions of the country in the ‘India Rankings 2019’ declared by National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Union ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). IIT Guwahati has been also ranked 2nd in the  ‘Swachhata Ranking’ conducted by the Govt. of India.

Among other frontier areas of research and innovation, IIT Guwahati is working towards augmenting critical science research initiatives in Genomics, Developmental Biology, Health Care and Bioinformatics, Flexible Electronics, Advanced Functional Materials, Sustainable Polymers, Rural Technologies, Disaster Resilence and Risk Reduction, and Water Resources and Management. In its silver jubilee year, IIT Guwahati is poised to scale newer heights through all round growth and development.