MIT: A stent inspired by the art of paper-cutting can deliver drugs to the gastrointestinal tract

CAMBRIDGE, MA-Inspired by the art of paper-cutting, folding Japanese art and cutting paper to create three-dimensional structures, MIT engineers and their collaborators designed a new type of scaffold that can be used to provide medicine to the gastrointestinal tract , Respiratory tract or other tubular internal organs

The stent is coated with a layer of smooth plastic with small "needles" etched on it.

This topical treatment can more easily affect gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease or eosinophilic esophagitis, said Giovanni Traverso, an MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

"This technique can basically be applied to any tubular organ," Traverso said

Sahab Babaee, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the lead author of the paper published today in the journal Natural Materials

Telescopic stand

Inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, such as IBD, are usually treated with drugs that suppress the body's immune response

Stents can provide a way to deliver drugs to the target part of the digestive tract, but inserting any kind of stent into the gastrointestinal tract can be tricky because the digested food continues to move in the digestive tract

The stent they designed has two key elements-a soft, flexible tube made of silicone-based rubber, and a plastic coating etched with needles that pop out when the tube is stretched

Babaee said: "The novelty of our method is that we used tools and concepts from mechanics, combined with biological inspiration from squamous skin animals, and developed a new type of drug delivery system that can directly deliver drugs.

In this study, the MIT research team coated a plastic needle with particles that can carry drugs

Traverso said: "This is a dynamic system, you have a flat surface, you can create these small needles, it pops out and enters the tissue for drug delivery

In this study, the researchers created several kirigami needles of different sizes and shapes

Gastrointestinal drug delivery

The researchers inserted the stent into the pig’s esophagus through an endoscope for testing

Once the drug-containing particles are deposited in the tissue, the researchers let go of the balloon and flatten the needle so that the stent can be removed through the endoscope

Traverso said that depending on the composition of the particles, they can be adjusted to release the drug over a longer period of time
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This can make it easier for patients to maintain the correct medication plan because they no longer need to take the medication by themselves, but receive the medication regularly through temporary stent insertion
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It can also avoid the side effects that may occur during systemic medication
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The researchers also showed that they can deliver stents into blood vessels and respiratory tracts
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They are now working to provide other types of drugs and expand the production process, with the ultimate goal of testing the stent on patients
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