A group of professors and students at National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu have founded a biopharmaceutical company to produce magnetic-sensitive microcapsules using nanotechnology that can be used in fighting cancer, cosmetics and other biomedical applications.
The research group is composed of two professors at the university's Graduate Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, who serve as consultants, and four postgraduate students from the institute, with one serving as general manager of the newly formed Advanced Delivery Technology Inc (ADT).
The company was established thanks to a NT$1 million (US$30,000) award presented to the team last month by the Industrial Bank of Taiwan after the team won second place in the 10th annual Win by Entrepreneurship, Work with Innovation and Networking (WeWin) competition organized by the bank in March.
The team won by publishing its work on Advanced Delivery Technology (ADT) — including the controlled rupturing of magnetic polyelectrolyte microcapsules for drug delivery — under the guidance of professors Chen San-yuan (陳三元) and Liu Dean-mo (劉典謨)
Chen said he believed a good thesis would remain nothing more than “empty talk” if it was not put into application, and this prompted him and Liu to assist the students in establishing ADT.
Liu said that although the four students were from the same institute, they had different academic backgrounds. For example, he said, one is a pharmaceutical major and holds a license to practice pharmacy.
ADT's principal aim is to promote self-assembled amphiphilic nanocapsules and drug-loading nanoparticle delivery systems, Liu said.
In the team's study, a magnetic-sensitive microcapsule was prepared using a polyelectrolyte to construct the shell, he said.
Experimental observations have shown that the presence of the magnetic nanoparticles in the shell structure allows it to evolve from nanocavity development to final rupture of the shell under given magnetic stimuli of different time durations, he said.
This evolution, he said, allows a corresponding variation of the drug release profile, from relatively slow release to burst-like behavior, at different stages of stimulus. This in turn allows drugs to be delivered at a predetermined time and at a predetermined location in the body, which could be very useful, particularly in the treatment of cancer.
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