Milk protein used in production of drug nanocarriers

 Iranian researchers from Kharazmi University produced drug nanocarriers for target delivery to treat gastric cancer.
Milk proteins have been used in the production of the nanocarrier. The production and evaluation of performance of the drug delivery system is at laboratorial stage at the moment.
Drugs that are currently used for the treatment of cancers, specially gastric cancer, have not been designed in a target delivery manner. Therefore, large amount of the drugs must be consumed during the treating process. In addition to its side effects, it causes patients with problems from financial point of view. Researchers tried in this study to design and produce oral target drug delivery system to treat gastric cancer by using milk proteins.
In this research, one of the important proteins in milk entitled casein was used to carry a chemotherapy medicine. Optimal conditions for the production of drug system at nanometric scale were obtained by changing laboratory conditions such as protein or drug concentrations. The system shows interesting therapeutic properties against gastric cancer in comparison with usual drugs.
Results obtained from simulation of stomach and intestine media show that the system slowly releases drug from the nanocapsule due to the acidic environment of the stomach. It also shows much stronger and more interesting effects in comparison with oxaliplatin free drug (which has not been encapsulated) on gastric cancerous cells.
According to the researchers, studies are being carried out on increasing the target delivery properties of the system, and complementary tests are being carried out to produce the drug.
Results of the research have been published in ANTI-CANCER AGENTS IN MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY, vol. 14, issue 6, 2014, pp. 892-900.