With Publication In the journal Nature, his research team presents the creation of a gel that they say could help store and deliver essential medicines, such as insulin, without the need for refrigerators or freezers. The technology could significantly improve the accessibility of essential protein medicines in parts of the world where cold storage infrastructure may be lacking.
It could also lead to better efforts to diagnose and treat more people with serious health problems in developing parts of the world. “The technology we have developed marks a significant advance in overcoming the challenges of the existing ‘cold chain’ of delivering therapeutic proteins to patients,” said Davy Adams of the University of Glasgow, one of the leaders of the research team.
Researchers say this special hydrogel consists mainly of water that stabilizes the proteins and protects their properties even at temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius. Protein-based medicines are used to treat a range of diseases, from diabetes until Cancer and, more recently, the obesity.
However, keeping them stable during storage and transport has been a challenge, as any heat-induced structural changes in the proteins can render them ineffective. Manufacturers try to keep protein-based medicines at very low temperatures to prevent them from deteriorating. This requires significant amounts of energy, limiting distribution to developing countries.
The challenge
While hydrogels have emerged as a potential solution for storing and transporting proteins at higher temperatures, separating the gel components from the proteins has proven challenging. “Our discovery removes this barrier and allows us to store and deliver proteins at room temperature without additives, which is a truly exciting prospect,” the researchers report.
The scientists made the hydrogel using a material called low molecular weight gelling agent, or LMWG, which forms a three-dimensional network of long, stiff fibers. When proteins are added to the hydrogel, they are trapped in the spaces between the fibers in an easily reversible way.
In these spaces, protein molecules cannot mix and aggregate, a process that typically limits their effectiveness as drugs. Because the gel fibers are fragile, the protein molecules can also be easily released. When the protein-filled gel was stored in a standard syringe with a special filter, simply pressing the plunger broke the fibers and released the protein.
The applications
The researchers showed that the gel could store two medically important proteins: insulin, used to treat diabetes, and beta-galactosidase, an enzyme with many applications in biotechnology and life sciences.
Insulin must normally be kept cold and still, as any heating or agitation can render it ineffective. The new hydrogel could make the diabetes drug withstand heating up to 25 degrees Celsius and spin at 600 rotations per minute, “a test far beyond any real-world scenario,” the researchers said. The entire active volume of insulin could be recovered from the hydrogel after the test, they noted.
The scientists were also able to store beta-galactosidase in the hydrogel at 50 degrees Celsius for seven days, a heat level that exceeds any realistic temperature involved in its real-world transport. When the enzyme was extracted from the gel, the researchers found that it retained 97 percent of its function.
In a third test, the scientists mailed proteins suspended in hydrogels to a location that took two days to transport. They found that the gel structures remained intact and prevented the proteins from aggregating. The researchers hope their findings will have significant implications for the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries.
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