New robotic pill makes insulin injections obsolete

Researchers create RoboCap capsules that will aid in administering drugs orally instead of being injected

A new drug capsule developed at MIT will be able to replace insulin injections with a robotic capsule that will spin and tunnel through the mucus barrier of the small intestine and deliver the drug components.

Protein drugs would be unable to penetrate through the mucus barrier of the digestive intestine, compelling medical experts to administer the drug by injecting it.

Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Giovanni Traverso said that "by displacing the mucus, we can maximise the dispersion of the drug within a local area and enhance the absorption of both small molecules and macromolecules”.

This approach has been found to be quite effective in delivering insulin and vancomycin, both of which have to be injected. Protein drugs can't be administered orally because they tend to break down in an acidic environment of the digestive tract and might even have difficulty penetrating the mucus barrier.

The lead author of the study, Shriya Srinivasan, created a protective capsule that included a mechanism that can tunnel through mucus just like drilling or boring holes through a hard surface.

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“I thought that if we could tunnel through the mucus, then we could deposit the drug directly on the epithelium,” she said.

“The idea is that you would ingest this capsule and the outer layer would dissolve in the digestive tract, exposing all these features that start to churn through the mucus and clear it,” she added.

The RoboCap capsule carries its drug payload in a small reservoir at one end, while the tunnelling features are present in its main body and surface.

The capsule is coated with gelatin and can dissolve at a specific pH, which will trigger a motor inside the capsule to start spinning and penetrate through the mucus. The small studs around the capsule will aid in brushing some of the mucus away, and the spinning will release the drug into the digestive tract.

According to Traverso, “What the RoboCap does is transiently displace the initial mucus barrier and then enhance absorption by maximising the dispersion of the drug locally. By combining all of these elements, we’re really maximising our capacity to provide the optimal situation for the drug to be absorbed.”

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While testing out the drug in animals, researchers found no sign of inflammation or irritation in the digestive tract after the capsule passed through, and the mucus layer was replaced hours after it had been displaced.

Researchers are optimistic that the capsule can be used to administer topical drugs to treat ulcerative colitis and other inflammatory conditions by maximising the local concentration of the drugs in the tissue to help treat the inflammation, according to the Bright Side of News.