School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
This material is based upon work supported by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology Global Research Outreach (GRO).
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MEDDS: Molecular Communication for Drug Delivery Systems
Overview
Targeted Drug Delivery Systems (DDS) are nowadays under intensive study as they are at the cutting edge of modern medical therapeutics. In particular, the goal of DDS is to provide a localized drug presence where the medication is needed, while, at the same time, preventing the drug from affecting other healthy parts of the body. For this, the design of a DDS involves the joint optimization of the transport process from the point where the drug enters the body until reaching the targeted site and the drug chemical behavior.
In a DDS, the drug must be efficiently delivered in desired concentrations where it is needed. The most advanced solutions use drugs composed of micro or nano-sized particles (particulate DDS), which are able to diffuse into the blood stream and to be transported into veins, arteries and capillaries. The understanding of how the drug particles diffuse in the body and the evolution of their distribution over time is of primary importance for the design of a particulate DDS. In this project, we propose to interpret particulate DDSs with the abstraction of a communication mechanism, where the drug particles are information carriers, which propagate messages (drug chemical properties) from the location of transmission (oral ingestion or intravascular injection) until the location of reception (targeted site). We advocate for the Molecular Communication (MC) paradigm, which realizes communication through the exchange of molecules, as a straightforward and efficient abstraction of a particulate DDS. Through MC, mathematical models of the evolution of the particulate drug concentration will be derived. Moreover, these models could be tailored to the specificities of the body of each individual. These results will be used to support the design of particulate DDSs, the prediction of their behavior and their customization to each patient's characteristics.