Diseases such as cancer, where the uncontrolled growth of malignant cells wreak havoc on the body, are becoming increasingly prevalent. While the cancer mortality has decreased in recent years, the means of treatment are still far from ideal. Treatment methods and agents used in these therapies are non-selective in their destruction of cells, often leaving the patient undergoing treatment to suffer severe side effects.
In an ideal world, treatment would comprise identifying, targeting, and destroying only malignant and unwanted cells, whilst leaving the healthy cells unharmed. Ultrasound is an elegant modality for this application, as it is one of few modalities that can be used for both diagnostic imaging and therapeutic treatment. It is also non-invasive, inexpensive, reliable, and safe. To harness it’s potential however, ultrasonic drug delivery agents are required that are capable of safely and reliably transporting and then releasing their payload at a target site.
Presently there are no known agents available with the required acoustic properties for use in both harmonic diagnostic ultrasonic imaging and in ultrasound-assisted drug delivery. The Pickering-stabilised antibubble is a micrometre-sized bubble with a liquid droplet core. These specially stabilised antibubbles may possess the desired acoustic properties to be such a theranostic agent, as they respond to low amplitude ultrasound by dancing, and to high amplitude ultrasound by exploding. This behavior could one day be harnessed to target and release drugs in specific areas in the body. In her doctoral dissertation, Nicole Anderton studied how these antibubbles responded to ultrasound exposure.
“The movement of specially stabilised bubbles under low acoustic amplitudes is already used to target and image specific areas in the body. If this behavior could be combined with drug release at high amplitudes, we would have an efficient therapeutic and diagnostic agent. The antibubble has been suggested for this application”, says Anderton.
In her study, Anderton was able to predict the dynamic response of Pickering-stabilised antibubbles to ultrasound. Furthermore, she identified the respective behaviour of Pickering-stabilised antibubble components under theranostic ultrasound conditions. This work has led to a straightforward way to determine the elasto-mechano properties of small samples of contrast agent.
“It’s exciting to understand more about how these particles and the components of these particles behave under sonication. Getting to see components of these antibubbles move through wood cells in a proof-of-concept study was particularly thrilling,” says Anderton.
Nicole Anderton is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa. She is currently working as a researcher at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University.
Public defence on Thursday 1 February
The doctoral dissertation of MSc (Eng) Nicole Anderton in the field of biomedical engineering titled Radial Dynamics of Pickering-stabilised Endoskeletal Antibubbles and Their Components in Pulsed Ultrasound will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University at 12 o’clock on February 1, 2024, in Päätalo auditorium A1 (A209) at city centre campus (Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere). The Opponent will be Dr Paul Campbell from the School of Science and Engineering at the University of Dundee. The Custos will be Professor Michiel Postema from Tampere University.
The dissertation is available online.
The public defence can be followed via a remote connection.
Photo: Janet Smith