IIT-Kanpur scientists patented a process to deliver drugs safely to lungs using a carbon-silica combination. Published on November 2, the study showed this method avoids toxic side-effects and tissue scarring. Prof Santosh K Misra said, "We expected to achieve some improvement in the biology but the interactive properties were unexpected."
How IIT-Kanpur scientists baked carbon into silica to negate toxic side-effects
For years, medical science has been confronting a frustrating paradox: Microscopic silica particles are great at carrying drugs straight to diseased lungs, but they also leave behind a toxic trail. A team at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, has patented a process to deliver drugs safely inside the body minus the toxicity.
Porous silica tends to interact with the protein known as 'transforming growth factor beta 1' (TGF-beta1). The protein coats the silica and prevents it from degrading naturally. This leads to scarring of tissues (known as silicosis or a form of fibrosis in the case of lungs).
Easy to make
But silica-based materials are ideal for biological applications because of their porous nature and the ease with which they can be formulated.
In a paper published in the journal Nanoscale in 2024, Prof Santosh K Misra and his team showed that a carbon-silica combination not only degraded fully after doing its job, but also helped avoid toxic side-effects. They secured a 20-year patent recently.
The team 'baked' carbon into silica during synthesis, instead of forcing the combination after the silica was formed.
The chemistry helped create bonds to permanently embed carbon in the silica framework, rather than remaining a loose mixture.
Desirable traits
The particles maintain their ordered structure while showing three desirable properties: Greater stability when loading with a drug (proven using curcumin as a model), degrading fully after releasing the cargo, and avoiding the proteins that cause lung scarring.
Why carbon? Because it has positive traits such as biodegradability and fluorescence. So, using fluorescence imaging, researchers can track the carbon's path inside the body.
Replicable model
Says Prof Misra: "We expected to achieve some improvement in the biology but the interactive properties with the TGF beta1 was something we initially didn't design the study for."
He adds that the team was confident that the beneficial properties shown by the model drug would be replicated in real-world scenarios. For example, an RNA-based drug to be ported would depend on electrostatic charges and "such charges can be introduced", according to the researcher.
The next steps for the team include running preclinical models on animal subjects before moving to human clinical trials.