Nanoparticle scavengers for in vivo sequestration of overdosed drug molecules

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Drug toxicity due to either overdose or abusive use represents a major healthcare problem. According to the Toxic Exposure Surveillance System data pharmaceuticals are implicated in 42% of all poisoning cases with >123,000 annual cases caused by therapeutic errors. The National Center for Health Statistics report that 22,000 people died of drug overdose in the U.S. in 2005 alone, and the number is growing rapidly. General rescue therapies such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, intravenous catecholamines to support homeostasis are used to treat drug intoxications in emergency room. These supportive therapies work to some extent; but there is a clearly unmet need for alternative emergency medicine that can effectively and rapidly lower the toxic concentrations of overdosed drugs. In particular, accidental overdose of bupivacaine, a local anesthetic has been reported to cause many cases of cardiac arrest and death. Intralipid is the only therapeutic scavenger with demonstrated clinical success in attenuating toxicities induced by overdosed lipophilic drugs. However improvements are needed to enhance the sequestration efficiency, reduce the dosing volume, and shorten the treatment period. Luna proposes to develop core-shell therapeutic nanoparticles that are capable of extracting lipophilic molecules from body fluids to its lipophili core, and thus overdosed drug is sequestered and its effective concentration is lowered. We hypothesized that the significantly enhanced surface area to volume ratio of Luna's nanoparticles relative to Intralipid will dramatically improve the sequestration efficiency, so tha drug toxicities can be ameliorated more effectively and rapidly. Luna's nanoparticle scavenger has the potential for a successful clinical translation as an antidote to overdosed drugs. Success of such a therapeutic product would be a valuable addition to the existing clinical armamentarium in emergency room.