title: The influence of blood on targeted microbubbles.
abstract: The ability to successfully target the delivery of drugs and other therapeutic molecules has been a key goal of biomedical research for many decades. Despite highly promising in vitro results, however, successful translation of targeted drug delivery into clinical use has been extremely limited. This study investigates the significance of the characteristics of whole blood, which are rarely accounted for in vitro assays, as a possible explanation for the poor correlation between in vitro and in vivo experiments. It is shown using two separate model systems employing either biochemical or magnetic targeting that blood causes a substantial reduction in targeting efficiency relative to saline under the same flow conditions. This finding has important implications for the design of targeted drug delivery systems and the assays used in their development.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grove
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rademeyer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK eleanor.stride@eng.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Eleanor
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stride
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000379:methods*; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D045423:Microbubbles; D013552:Swine
keywords: avidin–biotin; blood; drug delivery; magnetic; microbubbles; targeting