Patrick Couvreur received the 2013 European Inventor Award. This pioneer of nanomedicines invented revolutionary capsules. The survival of liver cancer is practically doubled.
The inventor of chemotherapy dreamed of attacking cancer cells without damaging healthy tissues in 1908. These “homing bullets”, as he called them, are none other than nanomedicines. One of its inventors, the French of Belgian origin Patrick Couvreur, has just been awarded the 2013 European inventor award, in the Research category. In fact, his work began in the late 1970s. The principle is simple: it involves locking drugs inside tiny capsules – 70 times smaller than red blood cells – so that they pass without hindrance. blood circulation and reach their target. This approach has a double advantage. Medicines in nanocapsules do not immediately disperse throughout the body. They release their charge only when the outer shell has been dissolved. Thus, the toxic effects are limited, and in particular those of anti-cancer drugs which are very important. As a result, it is possible to administer larger doses of drugs.
However, the nanoparticles invented by Patrick Couvreur only measure 10 to 1,000 nanometers. They therefore contain only a few drugs. To improve this high-tech means of transport, the biopharmacist used squalene, a lipid naturally present in the body. This allows the dose of drugs transported to be multiplied by 50, in other words to switch from a transporter the size of a Twingo to that of a semi-trailer! And it is this invention that won this European award to Patrick Couvreur.
Listen to Patrick Couvreur, biopharmacist and nanotechnology pioneer: “Squalene has the particularity of being very compact. So, we had the idea of coupling it to anticancer molecules. The percentage of encapsulation is therefore much higher”.
Patrick Couvreur’s invention has already proved its worth, particularly in the treatment of resistant liver cancer. To avoid the side effects on the heart of doxorubicin, the drug was enclosed in a nanocapsule. “Thus, the active principle does not go into the heart tissue at all, but into the liver tissue since we want to treat resistant hepatocarcinoma,” explains Patrick Couvreur. Consequently, we considerably increase tolerance, and therefore we can administer larger doses, and therefore be more effective, ”concludes the inventor of the year.
Listen to Patrick Couvreur : “Thanks to the nano-capsules, we have a survival, at 18 months, of patients suffering from hepatocarcinoma which is almost 90% instead of 54% with the traditional treatment”.
Of course, the injection into the body of nanomedicines is extremely restricted. All materials must be biodegradable and to verify this, the nanocapsule shell is labeled with a radioactive molecule. Thus, researchers can verify that all the material is excreted within a reasonable time.
These techniques, showing promise in cancer, are beginning to be tested in other diseases. “Our first tests in HIV were extremely encouraging and show that our nanocapsules will also increase the efficiency of the administration of drugs against HIV”, explains Patrick Couvreur.
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