Engineering Precision Medicine for the 21st Century

21 世纪的工程精准医学

• 批准号: EP/W004283/1
• 负责人: Eleanor Stride
• 金额: $ 38.6万
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FW004283%2F1
• 关键词: Engineering; Precision; Medicine; 21st; Century

The UK is facing a care crisis due to its aging population and the concomitant increase in diseases such as cancer, stroke and Alzheimer's. We urgently need better therapeutic solutions to manage these conditions, prevent premature deaths, enable patients to continue living independently and ease the burden on care providers. Our aim in the proposed research is to bring together scientists from the disparate fields of quantum physics and pharmaceutical chemistry, with biomedical engineers and clinicians in order to provide those solutions. Our approach is based upon the exciting new finding that microbubbles, currently used as imaging contrast agents can be stimulated with low intensity ultrasound to produce light, offering a unique method for delivery targeted therapy. Whilst photoactivated therapies have been the subject of both pre-clinical and clinical research for decades, their usefulness has been drastically hindered by the poor penetration of light through tissue. In our approach this barrier is eliminated. Since ultrasound can be precisely focused almost anywhere in the body from an external probe, light generation can be triggered remotely and non-invasively to deliver highly localised treatment with minimal off-target toxicity. This has the potential to transform the delivery of cancer chemotherapy, stroke treatment, antimicrobials and also newer treatments such as immunostimulatory and optogenetic therapies. The initial proof of concept phase will focus on quantification of the light emissions from microbubbles, the efficiency of drug activation and optimisation of the ultrasound exposure conditions. Our overall goal is to develop a complete treatment system, consisting of new therapeutic agents together with systems for treatment delivery and monitoring, ready for clinical development. This will provide the foundations for a pipeline of new treatments to transform therapeutic delivery by 2050.

由于人口老龄化以及随之而来的癌症、中风和老年痴呆症等疾病的增加，英国正面临着护理危机。我们迫切需要更好的治疗方案来管理这些疾病，防止过早死亡，使患者能够继续独立生活，减轻护理人员的负担。我们在拟议研究中的目标是将来自量子物理和药物化学不同领域的科学家与生物医学工程师和临床医生聚集在一起，以提供这些解决方案。我们的方法是基于令人兴奋的新发现，即目前用作成像造影剂的微泡可以用低强度超声刺激产生光，为靶向治疗提供了一种独特的方法。虽然光活化疗法几十年来一直是临床前和临床研究的主题，但其有效性受到光穿透组织的不良影响。在我们的方法中，这个障碍被消除了。由于超声波可以从外部探头精确聚焦到身体的几乎任何地方，因此可以远程和非侵入性地触发光的产生，以提供高度局部化的治疗，并具有最小的脱靶毒性。这有可能改变癌症化疗，中风治疗，抗菌药物以及免疫刺激和光遗传学疗法等新疗法的交付。最初的概念验证阶段将侧重于量化微泡的光发射，药物活化的效率和超声暴露条件的优化。我们的总体目标是开发一个完整的治疗系统，包括新的治疗药物以及治疗和监测系统，为临床开发做好准备。这将为到2050年改变治疗交付的新治疗管道提供基础。