Rational design of non-immunogenic elastin-based materials for applications in drug delivery

成功的癌症化疗需要能够减少和消除肿瘤的强效药物达到其预期目标。由于这些药物通常是有毒的，因此尽可能少地释放到身体的健康部位以限制不良副作用也很重要。出于这些原因，研究科学家们一直在试图开发“药物输送载体”，这种载体就像特洛伊木马一样，可以安全地穿过健康组织，将抗癌药物偷运到肿瘤中，并在很长一段时间内释放。这些载体是微小的（纳米大小的）颗粒，可以穿过血管并深入肿瘤。它们由合成材料或天然分子（如脂质）制成，这些分子已经存在于我们的身体中。然而，在这些方法在癌症治疗中变得有用之前，必须解决重要的问题。一方面，迄今为止开发的合成颗粒倾向于引发免疫反应（炎症），这导致载体被包裹在惰性组织中，有效地“埋葬”并使其失效。另一方面，天然的脂质载体往往释放货物太快，限制了它们的有效性。

Successful cancer chemotherapy requires that the powerful drugs which can reduce and eliminate tumours reach their intended target. Because these drugs are usually toxic, it is also essential that as little as possible is released into healthy parts of the body in order to limit adverse side effects. For these reasons, research scientists have been trying to develop "drug delivery vehicles" which act like trojan horses that can travel safely through healthy tissues and smuggle cancer drugs into tumours, where they are released over a prolonged period of time. These vehicles are tiny (nanometer-sized) particles that can travel through blood vessels and penetrate deep into tumours. They are made either of synthetic materials or of natural molecules such as lipids, which already exist in our bodies. However, important problems must be solved before these approaches become useful in cancer therapies. On the one hand, the synthetic particles developed to this date tend to elicit an immune response (inflammation), which results in the encapsulation of the vehicles in inert tissue, effectively "burying" and disabling them. On the other hand, natural, lipid-based vehicles tend to release their cargo too quickly, limiting their effectiveness.