Engineering Solutions to Address Challenges in Drug Delivery

Targeted delivery of therapeutics in a patient-compliant manner is a critical technological and societal challenge in today’s healthcare. Our laboratory is addressing this challenge by focusing on two critical needs; development of non-invasive alternatives to needle-based injections and development of strategies to target drugs to diseased sites. We have engineered approaches to deliver macromolecules across the skin using various tools including ultrasound, chemical enhancers, liquid microjets and peptide transporters. We have also extended these approaches to oral delivery to enable oral administration of proteins.

My talk will primarily focus on the strategies developed by our laboratory for targeted delivery of drugs to diseased sites by encapsulating them in polymeric particles. Particle properties have a significant impact on their therapeutic performance including circulation half-life, drug release rates and toxicity. Our studies have shown that particle morphology plays a significant role in determining the biological and therapeutic outcome of nanoparticles. We have devised methods to generate particles of several distinct morphologies and studied their impact on key processes in drug delivery including phagocytosis, circulation, adhesion of vascular walls, and targeting. Based on this understanding, we have designed novel nanoparticles that demonstrate enhanced targeting towards cancer and cardiovascular disease sites.

My talk will present an overview of the engineering principles that lay the foundation of our research in drug delivery, applications of these principles to address critical needs in drug delivery and translation of these solutions to clinical practice. 

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Samir Mitragotri is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He also serves as the Founding Director of UCSB’s Center for Bioengineering. He received PhD from MIT in 1996 and BS from Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai in 1992. Mitragotri’s research interests are in the field of drug delivery and biomaterials. His research has advanced fundamental understanding of transport processes in biological systems and led to the development of new materials and technologies for diagnosis and treatment of various ailments including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and infectious diseases. His research has made particular impact on the following areas: i) Transdermal drug delivery: Mitragotri has developed novel technologies including the use of chemical enhancers, microjets and peptides to enable transdermal delivery of proteins, peptides and siRNA. He has also developed detailed mathematical models to describe transdermal permeation of drugs, ii) Oral drug delivery: Mitragotri has developed novel polymer devices to enable oral delivery of proteins, iii) Polymeric materials for drug delivery: Mitragotri developed particles of unique morphologies and demonstrated their advantages for targeted drug delivery, and iv) Synthetic Cells: Mitragotri developed parties that mimic structural and certain functional attributes of red blood cells and platelets.

Mitragotri has published more than 150 publications in scientific journals including Science, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, PNAS and Advanced Materials. He has given more than 200 invited lectures in various conferences around the world. He is an inventor on 80 pending or issued patents. Mitragotri’s work has been cited more than 10,000 citations (h-index of 55). His work has also been highlighted in numerous popular and news media including Scientific American, Popular Science, R&D Magazine, New York Times, USA Today and Discover Magazine. Mitragotri has co-founded seven companies (Sontra, fqubed, Stratagent, Seventh Sense, Dx, Entrega and Convoy) that are developing various products for detection and treatment of diseases.

Mitragotri has received a number of awards including American Institute of Chemical Engineering’s Allan P. Colburn award given for outstanding publication record, Controlled Release Society’s Young Investigator award for outstanding work in drug delivery and Technology Review Young Inventor award (TR35) for technological innovation. Mitragotri is an elected fellow of AAAS and AIBME. The technologies developed by Mitragotri have also been recognized by several awards. In its launch year, ultrasound-based skin delivery product was recognized as the best medical product by Popular Science. The high throughput screening platform received Edison award for innovation (bronze medal) for Innovation in 2009. In 2010, the microjet injector received Edison award for innovation (silver medal). Finally, last year, a product from a company that Mitragotri co-founded (Seventh Sense Biosystems) also received Edison award for innovation (Gold medal). Mitragotri has also received outstanding faculty award and Chancellor’s award for excellence in undergraduate research. Mitragotri serves on editorial boards of several journals including the Journal of Pharmaceutical Science, European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Therapeutic Delivery, Drug Delivery and Translational Research, and Experimental Biology and Medicine. Mitragotri also serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Controlled Release.

Mitragotri has trained about 40 graduate students and post-docs that are currently working in various industries as well as academic institutions in the U.S. and around the world. He has also mentored research projects of about 100 undergraduate students.