Inspired by the humble sea urchin, Australian researchers have developed a new method of protecting delicate drugs and vaccines that usually need to be refrigerated.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
CSIRO's Kang Liang said the new technology could be most beneficial to developing countries, where transportation and refrigeration of vaccines was a major problem.
Some drugs become ineffective if they are not kept cool and protected from foreign organisms, making it especially difficult to deliver them to remote communities.
"Vaccines contain a lot of fragile proteins such as antibodies that are only stable around a certain temperature range," Dr Liang said. "If they go outside the temperature range they quickly degrade and lose activity … our technology can protect them."
The technology builds a shell directly around the molecule and was inspired by nature, with the design replicating the process a sea urchin uses to build itself a hard outer shell to protect its soft-tissue body from hostile environments.
"We basically apply this concept by using a specific chemical process," Dr Liang said.
Copying ideas from nature isn't new. However, the Dr Liang said applying the "sea urchin concept" to drug design was.
CSIRO collaborated with the University of Adelaide and the Australian Synchrotron in Clayton to develop the idea and perform experiments.
The technology can protect a vaccine for only a few dollars and could be even cheaper commercially.
While Dr Liang said the process was simple, easy and cheap, researchers have found the biggest hurdle is finding industry partners to collaborate with and apply the technology.
"We have just developed the idea," Dr Liang said. "Now we would like to contact commercial companies and pharmaceutical companies to further devise [the technology] into real application."
Once the team partners with other companies it can begin clinical trials and eventually introduce the technology into clinical practice.
The scientists, who have worked on the technology since February 2014, published their research in the June edition of the Nature Communications journal.
From a simple sea urchin, the new technology could soon be benefiting global healthcare and changing everyday lives for people in some of the most remote parts of the globe.
"We hope this technology can revolutionise the way to protect drugs," Dr Liang said.
