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Vaccine drug delivery via soap bubbles explored

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Soap bubbles tagged with biomolecules may serve as a new method for delivering drug and vaccines that fight against bacteria, viruses and cancer, according to a press release.

“We have created a technology platform that allows us to make drug and vaccine delivery vehicles that have previously been very difficult to prepare,” Phillip DeShong, ScD, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Maryland and president and co-founder of SD Nanosciences, said in the release. “If someone provides us with an antigen, it is possible for us to formulate it into a vaccine, purify it and have 1,000 doses ready within 72 hours.”

The soap bubbles, which researchers refer to as functionalized catanionic surfactant vesicles, are composed of soaplike elements that form capsules when mixed. Compared with other drug and vaccine delivery capsules, such as liposome, the bubbles form more quickly, have a longer shelf life and are less expensive, according to the release.

To deliver vaccines, the vesicles are disguised as bacteria, cancer cells or other disease-causing cells based on the antigens attached to the vesicle. Then, the body’s immune system attacks the vesicle — a process that is projected to generate similar results on future antigens that are presented in the body.

To administer drugs, the vesicles are filled with medications such as cancer treatments. The vesicles are coated with a targeting agent that attracts and attaches to the cancer cells, where the medication is subsequently released. The researchers anticipate lower drug doses and adverse events with this delivery method as the medication is released only to the cancer cells, according to the release.

“In principle, there are thousands of viruses we could make vaccines against, there are thousands of bacterial infections we could make vaccines against, and there are thousands of drugs we could deliver in a targeted way into the body,” DeShong said. “We’ve created a flexible platform with these decorated soap bubbles that should be able to make all of them.”

MedImmune, a research and development branch of AstraZeneca, granted SD Nanosciences $1 million in May 2014 to further study the safety and efficiency of its technology and to explore the possibility of using it to create different vaccines.

The researchers currently have four patents pending for the technology and continue to research drug and vaccine delivery, according to the release.

Disclosure: The researchers report receiving a $150,000 Maryland Innovation Initiative award from the Maryland Technology Development Corp., and additional funding from the NIH, National Science Foundation, DuPont and the Maryland Industrial Partnerships program.