About This Project

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The urinary bladder is a unique organ. While it's not directly exposed to the outside world (like the skin), by placing a small tube through the body’s natural urinary opening (the urethra), medications can be directed instilled into this organ. This is completely unlike most organs such as the heart or the lungs. Medications instilled in this manner have been used for some time and have known efficacy. However, the problem is that every few hours the bladder is so full (largely with urine) that it starts to cause pain unless the person urinates and empties their bladder. When the bladder empties, the medication instilled into the bladder is expelled and no longer has its desired effect. Doctors need new ways of delivering medications into the bladder that will prevent them from being expelled with urination. New delivery methods will increase the effect of the medication and spare the patient the discomfort of multiple urethral injections.

We have developed the ability to insert different medications into biologic packages which attach to the bladders natural lining. Because these biological packages intercalate into the bladder lining the medication carried in the biologic package will not be expelled when the patient urinates. The medication inside of the biologic package will slowly leach out of the package and have its desire effect on the bladder. This will result in exposing the bladder lining to the medication for days-weeks instead of minutes-hours.

What is the significance of this project?

This work has a variety of important uses. For people with irritated or overactive bladders that result in pain or frequent urination, we could deliver soothing, numbing or relaxing medications using our new method and likely alleviate these symptoms for weeks or months, thus providing relief to tens of millions of people. For the hundreds of thousands of patients living with cancer of the bladder, chemotherapeutic agents delivered directly to the bladder would have greater dwell time and greater efficacy on the tumor and could potentially save thousands of lives.

What are the goals of the project?

We have preliminary evidence that our novel biologic packaging is able to attach to the cells of the bladder lining and is more resistant to washing off than traditional methods. We also have preliminary evidence that we can package medications within these biologic packages. We now need funding to demonstrate that we can instill specifically target medications using this method that are resistant to urination and will result in greater dwell time. We are seeking $10,000 to complete this research.

We are seeking 10,000$- this funding will help us to develop charged particles which can hold the medicine and insert themselves into the bladder wall so that when the patient voids the medicine within these particles is not washed away. We have developed these particles and now we need to test them further in the laboratory setting as well as in animal models before we can begin on human studies.