Cardiff University leads new nanomedicine project

Scientists at Cardiff University, Wales, are collaborating with staff at the universities of Oxford, Bristol, Bath and Kings College, London, in the development of nanomedicine technology, which it claims 'could revolutionise the treatment of eye disease and other conditions including cancer and arthritis'.

The project, which has been made possible by a £420,000 grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, a UK government funding agency for research and training in engineering and the physical sciences, will look for ways of using nanotechnology to overcome the body's natural defences in order to ensure effective drug delivery.

'The challenge is to build a small vehicle to carry the drug through the body, without its being recognised as "foreign", and get it into the target cells in an eye, a tumour or an arthritic joint, for example,' said Dr Peter Griffiths of Cardiff Univesity's School of Chemistry. 'We are aiming to create a polymer - a long molecule - to act as a shield for the drug; protecting it from the body's defences and guiding it into the target cell [before] dissolving away safely while the drug dose does its work.'

Professor Ruth Duncan of the Welsh School of Pharmacy, a joint leader of the project, has helped to pioneer this method of targeting cells, known as 'polymer therapeutics', and was the first person in the world to develop polymer therapeutics, dubbed 'magic bullet' technology, for clinical trial. The Cardiff-led team is also developing the 'second generation' of this technology in partnership with the university's Institute for Tissue Engineering and Repair, with the goal being to design improved therapies for the treatment of arthritis.