Therapy using implanted organic bioelectronicsShow others and affiliations
2015 (English)In: Science Advances, E-ISSN 2375-2548, Vol. 1, no 4, article id 1500039Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Many drugs provide their therapeutic action only at specific sites in the body, but are administered in ways that cause the drug’s spread throughout the organism. This can lead to serious side effects. Local delivery from an implanted device may avoid these issues, especially if the delivery rate can be tuned according to the need of the patient. We turned to electronically and ionically conducting polymers to design a device that could be implanted and used for local electrically controlled delivery of therapeutics. The conducting polymers in our device allow electronic pulses to be transduced into biological signals, in the form of ionic and molecular fluxes, which provide a way of interfacing biology with electronics. Devices based on conducting polymers and polyelectrolytes have been demonstrated in controlled substance delivery to neural tissue, biosensing, and neural recording and stimulation. While providing proof of principle of bioelectronic integration, such demonstrations have been performed in vitro or in anesthetized animals. Here, we demonstrate the efficacy of an implantable organic electronic delivery device for the treatment of neuropathic pain in an animal model. Devices were implanted onto the spinal cord of rats, and 2 days after implantation, local delivery of the inhibitory neurotransmitter g-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was initiated. Highly localized delivery resulted in a significant decrease in pain response with low dosage and no observable side effects. This demonstration of organic bioelectronics-based therapy in awake animals illustrates a viable alternative to existing pain treatments, paving the way for future implantable bioelectronic therapeutics. 2015 © The Authors.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
American Association for the Advancement of Science , 2015. Vol. 1, no 4, article id 1500039
Keywords [en]
Amino acids, Animals, Conducting polymers, Drug delivery, Drug interactions, Functional polymers, Health, Neurophysiology, Polyelectrolytes, Polymeric implants, Targeted drug delivery, Aminobutyric acids, Bio-electronic integration, Biological signals, Controlled delivery, Interfacing biologies, Localized delivery, Organic electronics, Proof of principles, Controlled drug delivery
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-42064DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500039Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85023638261OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-42064DiVA, id: diva2:1378556
2019-12-132019-12-132025-09-23Bibliographically approved