Biotech Breakthrough: Going “Back to Nature” for Drug Delivery

A team of researchers at the University of California-Santa Barbara has announced a major breakthrough in healthcare — the development of artificial red blood cells (RBCs) that look and act like natural ones — that offers new product development opportunities for the pharma industry and the healthcare consumer, according to Scientific American (via Neatorama).

Also known as erythrocytes, red blood cells — the tiny, concave disks that deliver oxygen to the body’s tissues — account for approximately a quarter of the cells in the human body. To make RBCs in the lab, Dr. Samir Mitragotri and his colleagues started with spheres of biodegradable polymer, collapsed them into disk shapes, layered them with proteins and then dissolved away the polymer, to leave soft, strong, flexible shells — the same diameter as authentic red blood cells — which can squeeze through capillaries smaller than their own diameter, just like the real thing.

What’s more, they can carry substances (e.g., an anticoagulant or some other pharmaceutical) just like real RBCs do, making this advance in biotechnology a promising new frontier in drug delivery systems, as well.