designing-porous-silicon-films-as-carriers-of-nerve-growth-factor

Designing Porous Silicon Films as Carriers of Nerve Growth Factor

Despite the great potential of NGF for treating neurodegenerative diseases, its therapeutic administration represents a significant challenge as the ...

Libraries and Information System of Bar-Ilan University

Bar-Ilan Institute of Nanotechnologies and Advanced Materials

Bar-Ilan University

A new paradigm for an effective delivery of therapeutics into cancer cells is presented. Degradable porous silicon carriers, which are tailored to carry and release a model anti-cancer drug, are biolistically bombarded into in-vitro cancerous targets. We demonstrate the ability to launch these highly porous microparticles by a pneumatic capillary gene gun, which is conventionally used to deliver cargos by heavy metal carriers. By optimizing the gun parameters e.g., the accelerating gas pressure, we have successfully delivered the porous carriers, to reach deep targets and to cross a skin barrier in a highly spatial resolution. Our study reveals significant cytotoxicity towards the target human breast carcinoma cells following the delivery of drug-loaded carriers, while administrating empty particles results in no effect on cell viability. The unique combination of biolistics with the temporal control of payload release from porous carriers presents a powerful and non-conventional platform for designing new therapeutic strategies.

Bombarding cancer: biolistic delivery of therapeutics using porous Si carriers.

Although nerve growth factor (NGF) is beneficial for the treatment of numerous neurological and non-neurological diseases, its therapeutic administration represents a significant challenge, due to the difficulty to locally deliver relevant doses in a safe and non-invasive manner. In this work, we employ degradable nanostructured porous silicon (PSi) films as carriers for NGF, allowing its continuous and prolonged release, while retaining its bioactivity. The PSi carriers exhibit high loading efficacy (up to 90%) of NGF and a continuous release, with no burst, over a period of>26days. The released NGF bioactivity is compared to that of free NGF in both PC12 cells and dissociated dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. We show that the NGF has retained its bioactivity and induces neurite outgrowth and profound differentiation (of >50% for PC12 cells) throughout the period of release within a single administration. Thus, this proof-of-concept study demonstrates the immense therapeutic potential of these tunable carriers as long-term implants of NGF reservoirs and paves the way for new localized treatment strategies of neurodegenerative diseases.

Prolonged controlled delivery of nerve growth factor using porous silicon nanostructures.

Regulated negative pressure-assisted wound therapy is a fundamental, nonpharmaceutical technology for acute and chronically infected wounds, yet bacterial clearance and biofilm buildup remain a challenge for healing. Regulated irrigation combined with negative pressure (RI-NPT) is emerging as an alternative therapeutic strategy for reducing bacterial load. Here, we analyzed RI-NPT hydrokinetics and efficacy of bacterial load reduction in wounds.

Neta Zilony

Faculty of Engineering

Libraries and Information System of Bar-Ilan University

Designing Porous Silicon Films as Carriers of Nerve Growth Factor