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A battery-free nanofluidic intracellular delivery patch for internal organs
Dedong Yin1,2,3, Pan Wang2, Yongcun Hao4,5
1Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
Nature
|April 30, 2025
Summary
A new NanoFLUID patch offers targeted, efficient drug delivery to internal organs, overcoming limitations of current methods. This technology enables precise cell membrane electroperforation for accelerated intracellular transport, aiding disease treatment and biological discovery.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Nanotechnology
- Drug Delivery Systems
Background:
- Targeted therapeutic delivery to internal organs is crucial for treating diseases but faces efficiency and safety challenges with current circulation-based methods.
- Existing delivery modalities often lack the necessary precision, safety, and controllability for effective organ-specific treatment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and validate a novel battery-free, chipless, soft nanofluidic intracellular delivery (NanoFLUID) patch for enhanced organ-targeted payload delivery.
- To demonstrate the NanoFLUID patch's capability for safe, efficient, and controllable intracellular delivery and its application in disease modeling and biological screening.
Main Methods:
- Development of a NanoFLUID patch featuring a nanopore-microchannel-microelectrode structure for cell membrane electroperforation.
- In vivo evaluation of the NanoFLUID patch in models of breast tumors, liver injury, and tumor development.
- Application of NanoFLUID for in vivo gene library transfection to screen metastasis drivers.
Main Results:
- The NanoFLUID patch demonstrated safe, efficient, and precise cell membrane electroperforation, accelerating intracellular transport by ~10^5 times compared to diffusion.
- Successful in vivo applications included treatment of breast tumors and acute liver injury, validating efficiency, safety, and controllability.
- NanoFLUID-mediated gene transfection facilitated the identification of DUS2 as a lung-specific driver of breast cancer metastasis.
Conclusions:
- The NanoFLUID patch is an innovative bioelectronic platform for targeted organ delivery, offering significant advantages over conventional methods.
- This technology holds promise for treating various diseases and advancing biological research by enabling precise intracellular delivery.
- NanoFLUID provides a versatile tool for both therapeutic applications and uncovering new biological insights, such as metastasis drivers.
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