Delivering living medicines with biomaterials

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Cellular Therapeutics
• Drug Delivery Systems

Background:

• Living medicines, including engineered cells, fungi, bacteria, and viruses, hold transformative potential for medicine.
• Current clinical progression of living medicines is hindered by a lack of effective in-body delivery strategies.
• Unlike conventional therapeutics, living medicines necessitate managing viability, replication, metabolism, and immunogenicity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review and analyze current delivery strategies for living medicines.
• To identify key challenges associated with delivering living medicines.
• To explore the adaptation of biomaterial strategies from conventional drug delivery for living medicines.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of clinically adopted biomaterial strategies for drug delivery.
• Analysis of challenges specific to living medicine delivery.
• Exploration of biomaterial applications for cell, fungal, bacterial, and viral therapeutics.

Main Results:

• Living medicines present unique delivery hurdles, including maintaining cell viability and controlling biological functions.
• Biomaterial strategies used for conventional drugs can be adapted for living medicine delivery.
• Significant progress has been made, but challenges in controlled delivery and immunogenicity remain.

Conclusions:

• Advanced delivery systems are crucial for the clinical translation of living medicines.
• Tailoring biomaterials offers a promising avenue for overcoming living medicine delivery challenges.
• Future research should focus on next-generation delivery systems to fully realize the potential of living therapeutics.