A very promising breakthrough has been observed by Kumamoto University researchers who discovered the use of MCM-41 in a Drug Delivery System (DDS) for administering antimalarials in the treatment of malaria.
Antimalarials have a variety of weaknesses which make a clinical cure difficult to attain. Its strong side effects, short duration and the fact that it’s broken down in the stomach affects its overall therapeutic outcome.
DDS controls how much drug is delivered to specific sites in the body and when it’s delivered.
MCM-41 is a porous silica material which has a pore size range of 2-30 nm and is used in DDS as drugs can be incorporated into its pores to prolong the delivery of the intended drug and or drugs.
Now, to test the possibility of better therapeutic outcomes, a new DDS was obtained from the combination of Artesunate and Quinine with MCM-41 by the researchers. It was tested in vivo (inside a living organism) and in vitro (outside a living organism) and the results were promising.
The individual effects of Artesunate and Quinine were increased up to 20 and 240 times, respectively. Subsequently, their combined and individual efficiency were increased as less of the drug would be needed for a therapeutic effect, ultimately reducing the adverse and side effects of the drug. MCM-41 is known to be inactive and non-toxic, hence, very weak side effects are expected if at all there is. Also, the drug release time was increased from its standard time to a week or more. A severe improvement.
These obtained results are fueling future clinical trials for humans to test the possibility of highly effective malaria treatments and DDS treatment clinical trials would most likely be done for HIV too based on these promising results, says Professor Shinya Hayami the head of the research held at Kumamoto University in Japan.
