Autonomous Grippers in the Gastrointestinal Tract

项目总结 药物的长期控制释放一直是医生、科学家和 在过去的二三十年里，工程师们都是一样的。尽管在实地作出了重大努力，并引入了 几项发明进入制药市场，该领域缺乏一种技术，涉及到容易 向胃肠道(口服或直肠途径)递送，同时承诺在几个月内递送药物 几天到几周。多年来，科学家和工程师一直没有找到一种持久的传递机制，现在仍然是一种 积极研究的主题。在这里，我们建议继续开发一种创新的方法，其中 对粘膜组织的机械夹持用于改善胃肠道的滞留时间。机械的 模组被绑在运载药物的货物上，该制剂可以口服或直肠给药，而不需要任何 专家的帮助。该方法将非常有利于提高服药依从性和依从性。 治疗方案，从而大大减少了可避免和不必要的住院。 我们计划用来改善对胃肠道的滞留的夹持机制是基于 自动折叠机器人的无线驱动，可以设计成对 胃肠道，以一种自主方式。我们是微型化驱动领域的先行者 没有任何外部电源的机器人，并证明了这些亚毫米级机器人的用处 在生猪的胆道树上进行活检的鳞片结构。在这里，我们以之前的结果为基础， 在夹持器上引入携带货物的药物，以便它们可以长时间留在胃肠道内 持续一到几天，以维持治疗所需的药物浓度。以及 除了开发系统交付模块外，该提案还包括开发技术以 设计抓取模块与柔软易碎组织的粘附性，从而促进癌症的局部治疗。 我们由胃肠病专家、工程师和药理学家组成的高度跨学科的团队寻求 在猪模型中测试这些假设，该模型与人类有类似的胃肠道疾病模型。特别是，我们将交付 治疗剂量的止痛剂，以实现药物在动物血浆中的释放， 已经好几天了。止痛器和类似的设备可能会锁住粘膜衬里， 也可以在猪的溃疡性结肠炎模型上进行测试，以确保抗炎药物的释放，如 美沙拉明。

PROJECT SUMMARY Long-term controlled release of drugs has been a problem tackled by medical practitioners, scientists and engineers alike for the past two or three decades. Despite significant efforts in the field, and the introduction of several inventions to the pharmaceutical market, the field suffers from the lack of a technique that involves easy delivery to the gastrointestinal tract (either oral or rectal route), while promising delivery of a drug over several days to weeks. A long lasting delivery mechanism has eluded scientists and engineers over years and is still a topic of active research. Here we propose to continue the development of an innovative method, in which mechanical gripping to the mucosal tissue is used to improve residence time in the GI tract. The mechanical module is tied to a cargo carrying a drug and the formulation can be administered orally or rectally without any expert help. The method will be extremely favorable to improve adherence and compliance to medicine regimens, thus significantly reducing avoidable and unwanted hospitalization. The gripping mechanism that we plan to utilize to improve retention to the gastrointestinal tract, is based on wireless actuation of self-folding robots, that can be engineered to function on administration to the gastrointestinal tract, in an autonomous fashion. We are the forerunners in the field of actuation of miniaturized robots, without any external power source, and have demonstrated the usefulness of these robotic submillimeter scale structures to carry out biopsy in the biliary tree of live pigs. Here we build on our previous results and introduce a drug carrying cargo on the grippers, such that they can be left inside the GI tract for a prolonged duration of one to several days, to maintain the required concentration of the drug for therapy. Along with the development of systemic delivery modules, the proposal also includes the development of techniques to engineer the adhesion of the gripping modules to soft friable tissues, thus promoting the local therapy of cancer. Our highly interdisciplinary team which involves gastroenterologists, engineers and pharmacologists, seek to test these hypotheses in a pig model, that has a similar GI model as humans. In particular we will deliver therapeutic dosage of an analgesic rectally, to achieve release of the drug in the blood plasma of the animal, over several days. The theragrippers and similar devices that can potentially latch onto the mucosal lining, will also be tested on an ulcerative colitis model in pigs to ensure the release of anti-inflammatory drugs like mesalamine.