Tag Archives: Brandon L. Helfield

Microbubbles reform into nanoparticles after bursting

It seems researchers at the Toronto-based (Canada), Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, have developed a new theranostic tool made of microbubbles used for imaging that are then burst into nanoparticles delivering therapeutics. From a March 30, 2015 news item on phys.org,

Biomedical researchers led by Dr. Gang Zheng at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have successfully converted microbubble technology already used in diagnostic imaging into nanoparticles that stay trapped in tumours to potentially deliver targeted, therapeutic payloads.

The discovery, published online today [March 30, 2015] in Nature Nanotechnology, details how Dr. Zheng and his research team created a new type of microbubble using a compound called porphyrin – a naturally occurring pigment in nature that harvests light.

A March 30, 2015 University Health Network news release on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, describes the laboratory research on mice,

In the lab in pre-clinical experiments, the team used low-frequency ultrasound to burst the porphyrin containing bubbles and observed that they fragmented into nanoparticles. Most importantly, the nanoparticles stayed within the tumour and could be tracked using imaging.

“Our work provides the first evidence that the microbubble reforms into nanoparticles after bursting and that it also retains its intrinsic imaging properties. We have identified a new mechanism for the delivery of nanoparticles to tumours, potentially overcoming one of the biggest translational challenges of cancer nanotechnology. In addition, we have demonstrated that imaging can be used to validate and track the delivery mechanism,” says Dr. Zheng, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret and also Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.

Conventional microbubbles, on the other hand, lose all intrinsic imaging and therapeutic properties once they burst, he says, in a blink-of-an-eye process that takes only a minute or so after bubbles are infused into the bloodstream.

“So for clinicians, harnessing microbubble to nanoparticle conversion may be a powerful new tool that enhances drug delivery to tumours, prolongs tumour visualization and enables them to treat cancerous tumours with greater precision.”

For the past decade, Dr. Zheng’s research focus has been on finding novel ways to use heat, light and sound to advance multi-modality imaging and create unique, organic nanoparticle delivery platforms capable of transporting cancer therapeutics directly to tumours.

Interesting development, although I suspect there are many challenges yet to be met such as ensuring the microbubbles consistently arrive at their intended destination in sufficient mass to be effective both for imaging purposes and, later, as nanoparticles for drug delivery purposes.

Here’s a link to and citation for the paper,

In situ conversion of porphyrin microbubbles to nanoparticles for multimodality imaging by Elizabeth Huynh, Ben Y. C. Leung, Brandon L. Helfield, Mojdeh Shakiba, Julie-Anne Gandier, Cheng S. Jin, Emma R. Master, Brian C. Wilson, David E. Goertz, & Gang Zheng. Nature Nanotechnology (2015) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.25 Published online 30 March 2015

This paper is behind a paywall but a free preview is available via ReadCube Access.

This is one of those times where I’m including the funding agencies and the ‘About’ portions of the news release,

The research published today was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship, the Emerging Team Grant on Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine co-funded by the CIHR and the Canadian Space Agency, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, the International Collaborative R&D Project of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, South Korea, the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum/Brazilian Ball Chair in Prostate Cancer Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

About Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network

The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre has achieved an international reputation as a global leader in the fight against cancer and delivering personalized cancer medicine. The Princess Margaret, one of the top five international cancer research centres, is a member of the University Health Network, which also includes Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. All are research hospitals affiliated with the University of Toronto. For more information, go to http://www.theprincessmargaret.ca or http://www.uhn.ca .

I was not expecting to see South Korea or Brazil mentioned in the funding. Generally, when multiple countries are funding research, their own research institutions are also involved. As for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre being one of the top five such centres internationally, I wonder how these rankings are determined.