Non-Invasive Precision Targeting Cancer Chemotherapy
Targeting solid tumors – primary & metastatic – irrespective of their anatomical location in the body or pathological sub-type – and permeating drug molecules into the targeted tumor mass, will improve therapeutic outcomes and reduce life-threatening systemic toxicities induced by routinely administered chemotherapeutic regimens.
Focused Resonance Nano-permeabilization (FORN) enables the ‘targeted’ delivery of chemo-therapeutic molecules using a safe, non-invasive, whole-body therapeutic device.
Now, Dr Rajah Vijay Kumar, director and chief scientific officer at Bengaluru’s Centre for Advanced Research and Development, has had a breakthrough in reducing the side-effects of chemotherapy through a patented system – contained in a whole-body device called Cellular Focused Resonance Nano-Permeabilisation or Cellforn.
Chemotherapy is one of the best options available for treating cancer but its severe side-effects are a separate battle. “Actually the cargo is good but the delivery is bad. That is where my team decided to intervene,” he says.
Cellforn creates temporary nano pores that can receive drugs, allowing delivery to the cell membrane of the cancer tissue, identified with pretreatment proton density evaluations.
“All drugs contain hydrogen atoms that bond with other molecules. The nucleus of the hydrogen atoms (containing only protons) in the drug are like bar magnets, they have specific alignments. Tissues too have protons that have the same alignment as the drug. Cellforn reverses the alignment of the hydrogen protons in the tumour tissue, spins it opposite to that of the drug molecule, attracting it to the sensitized tumour tissue,
” Kumar explained.Induced by fast radio bursts, Cellforn creates temporary receptors or holes which are timed and delivered to target lesions. Concentrations of target drugs like carboplatin and paclitaxel, for example, are delivered based on their molecular weight. The whole body device that delivers the precisely planned FRB houses specialized antennae and delivery mechanisms.
“Almost the entire drug payload is delivered to the tumour, and minimal to the healthy tissue. Hence, there will be very little or no adverse side-effects,” he said.
Dr. Kumar claims Cellforn could make drugs 10 to 70 times more effective as they can be highly localized and used in vivo (on tissues and organs inside the body) and noninvasively.
“Cellforn also controls chromatin, a group of macromolecules that holds the genetic information within cells. Chromatin can make cancer cells resistant to treatment. But chemotherapy administered with Cellforn will not make the cancer tissue develop resistance to the cancer cytotoxic drug,” he said.
The precision-targeted drug delivery system is market-ready, granted with a US Patent earlier this year. It is likely to go into production in nine months.
