Hitchhiking Nanoparticles for Lung Cancer

Cancer claims the lives of 1 in 6 individuals globally, and most patients suffer from some form of lung cancer. The efficacy of chemotherapy is low due to ineffective targeting and poor drug accumulation. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Samir Mitragotri on how his team assembled a way to utilize the body’s red blood cells to smuggle nanoparticles to the affected lung in a trojan horse-like fashion. Remarkably, this extended the circulation time of the drug and increased delivery by 10-fold in comparison to free nanoparticles. Dr. Samir Mitragotri is a Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He has been inducted into the National Academies of Engineering and Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His expertise and hard work have led to 210 publications and around 150 patents.