Students from Wroclaw help design drug carriers
Students of Wroclaw University of Technology can contribute to the development of new drug carriers. Using the molecular modelling method they study the properties of hydrogels that could be great drug carriers, dressings or dental care materials.
Molecular modelling with computers that have huge computing power is currently the best way chemists have to design drug carriers. This is the method Wroclaw University of Technology students from Biochemistry and Nanophysics Group (BANG) use to study the properties of hydrogels. They participate in the grant of Dr. Karolina Labus and Dr. Łukasz Radosiński, in which they are responsible for developing a methodology for obtaining virtual models of hydrogels.
As the Wroclaw University of Technology reports, the structure of hydrogel is very similar to the natural environment of cells and tissues. Therefore, hydrogels are extremely effective drug carriers. They are also used as dressings, dental care materials, implant components. They are the basic "building blocks" of the skeleton in tissue regeneration or in the creation of new generation of contact lenses. Because hydrogels have a lot of empty space, they are also used as superabsorbents, which can absorb large amounts of water.
"Students from the BANG group are the second research group in the world to have managed to create a virtual molecular model of gelatine hydrogel" - Wroclaw University of Technology informed. This achievement has been made by the team led by the BANG group member Kuba Wojciechowski. The students\' work required many calculations using high-power computers. "Gelatine is a very complex polymer, difficult to model. The method proposed by the student is definitely faster and more useful than previously used methods" - Wroclaw University of Technology reported.
Using the appropriate software, students design a particle, expand it, and then perform a simulation. They apply forces that would act on the structure in the natural environment; they test how the model behaves with certain modifications and while mixing with other polymers. The program calculates everything and shows how the particle behaves in a given situation, for example, whether it will not break down too quickly.
"We have built a model of simple amino acids, which we can now use to test the ability to determine the different material properties of the hydrogel" - explained Dawid Capała from the BANG group. "We get results after a few hours, in the case of more complicated systems calculations may even take several months, but that is still much faster than traditional laboratory methods using expensive reagents" - added Wroclaw University of Technology student Ewa Białek.
Dawid Capała explained that their job is to study the structure and then give it the expected properties. "We design specific actions of the molecule. If it is equipped with an analgesic, then it should be released in a specific place, and in a desired quantity" - Capala explained. This would allow the implanted drug to be released gradually, it would not harm the whole body and only work the affected area. This is particularly important, for example, in cancer diseases where the so-called targeted therapy can be a tremendous opportunity to slow down the development of the disease.
At the same time, students are working on the development of the properties of silica, that is, silicon dioxide. Silicas can also serve as drug delivery systems for long-term therapies, nanoreactors or highly efficient catalysts. "The use and development possibilities of these materials are enormous" - said Dawid Capala.
He adds that computer simulation also allows to return to projects that in the real world ended in failure for some reason. "We can determine where a mistake was made. Sometimes it turns out that the idea was very good, but did not wok because of a small mistake in the beginning. In such a situation, computer modelling allows to determine where the corrections should be made in order to return to research" - he explained.
The science club BANG cooperates with scientists from Poland (Polish Academy of Sciences) and has contacts with researchers from foreign universities, including universities in France (Université de Montpellier, Université d\'Aix-Marseille), Germany (University of Bremen) and Ukraine (Lviv Polytechnic National University).
More information about the project is available on the website.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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