For the first time, researchers have come up with a technique that coats anticancer drugs in membranes made from a patient’s own platelets. This technique allows the drugs to stay for longer lime in the body and target both primary cancer tumors and the circulating tumor cells that can lead a cancer to metastasize. Researchers tested the work successfully in an animal model.

Zhen Gu, corresponding author of a paper on the work, said there are two major benefits of using platelet membranes to coat anticancer drugs. Zhen Gu mentioned, “First, the surface of cancer cells has an affinity for platelets – they stick to each other. Second, because the platelets come from the patient’s own body, the drug carriers aren’t identified as foreign objects, so last longer in the bloodstream”.

Quanyin Hu, lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. student in the joint biomedical engineering program, said that using this combination of features, the drugs will be able to not only attack the main tumor site, but are more likely to find and attach themselves to tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream and will mainly attack new tumors before they start.

The researchers used mice in the study and discovered that using Dox and TRAIL in the pseudo-platelet drug delivery system was notably more effective in fighting large tumors and circulating tumor cells in comparison to using Dox and TRAIL in a nano-gel delivery system without the platelet membrane.

“This combination of features means that the drugs can not only attack the main tumor site, but are more likely to find and attach themselves to tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream – essentially attacking new tumors before they start,” says Quanyin Hu, lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. student in the joint biomedical engineering program.