
Locoregional targeted delivery for improved therapeutic outcomes
Interventional Radiologists can access almost any part of the human body without the need for conventional open surgical techniques. As such, they are poised to change the way patients can be treated, given they can locally deliver drug, gene, cell and cell-free therapies directly to affected organs using image-guided endovascular (i.e. within blood vessels), endoluminal (i.e. within the bowel, respiratory or urinary system), percutaneous (i.e. through the skin) and even using device implantation (i.e. bioscaffolds) approaches. These Precision Delivery approaches overcome many of the issues related to conventional systemic delivery of therapies which includes: first-pass drug metabolism, off-target side effects, lung entrapment of cellular therapies and liver/spleen entrapment of nano or micro scale cell-free and gene-vector therapies
Our lab develops new pre-clinical translational models for locoregional precision delivery of therapeutics into different organ systems with the vision that these can be effectively clinically translated into patients. Given the foundation of Interventional Oncology (IO), where we treat solid tumors through the local delivery of drug, cellular and thermal/ablative therapies, our team is pioneering the new scientific field of Interventional Regenerative Medicine (IRM), where we envisage the ability to restore cellular health and function of injured tissues through the local delivery of stem cell therapies.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) encompasses two distinct diseases: Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Mucosal healing is the preferred treatment target, as patients who achieve mucosal healing have improved outcomes, including decreased risk of surgery, and lower relapse rates. However, almost all therapies are given either orally or intravenously resulting in non-target systemic distribution with only minimal therapy reaching the bowel. Our research focuses on delivering MSC therapies directly into the arterial circulation of the bowel to ensure their maximal therapeutic efficiency at inflamed segments to thereby improve their therapeutic effects.
Precision Equipment are essential to accomplish precision delivery in patients. We work closely with main stream imaging vendors to optimize equipment that help us “see-inside” and intervene upon the human body; start-ups and device manufacturers to develop new catheters and devices for drug and cell delivery; and even developing new devices in our own lab for children given their unique smaller body size and continual growth trajectory; indeed, we envisage one day of being able to develop “custom devices”, specific for individual patients, using advances in technologies like 3D printing..