Insulin shots are no longer relevant thanks to a new robotic tablet, Robocap
A novel medication capsule created at MIT will be able to replace insulin injections by delivering the treatment’s components through a robotic capsule that spins and tunnels through the small intestine’s mucus barrier. Protein medications would have to be administered intravenously since they cannot pass through the mucus lining of the digestive tract. Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and development assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, stated that “by displacing the mucus, we can maximize the dispersion of the drug within a local area and enhance the absorption of both small molecules and macromolecules.” Vancomycin and insulin both need to be injected, and this method of delivery has been found to be extremely effective. Protein medications cannot be taken orally since they tend to degrade in the digestive tract’s acidic environment and may even have trouble passing the mucus barrier.
Shriya Srinivasan, the study’s primary author, developed a protective capsule with a mechanism that can tunnel through mucus in a manner similar to boring or drilling holes through a hard surface. I believed that we could deposit the medication directly on the epithelium if we could tunnel through the mucus, she said. The idea is that after swallowing this capsule, the outer layer will disintegrate in the digestive tract, revealing all of these properties that begin to churn through the mucus and clear it.
The tunneling features are present in the RoboCap capsule’s main body and surface, while its pharmacological payload is contained in a tiny reservoir at one end. The capsule has a gelatin coating that may breakdown at a particular pH level, causing a motor within to turn on and break through the mucus. The medicine will be released into the digestive tract by rotating the capsule, which will help sweep some of the mucus away. Traverso claims that the RoboCap temporarily removes the initial mucus barrier to maximize local medication dispersion, which then improves absorption. We are actually maximizing our ability to create the ideal environment for the medicine to be absorbed by combining all of these factors.
The mucus layer was reestablished hours after it had been disturbed, and there was no evidence of inflammation or irritation in the digestive tract after the capsule passed through, according to study on the medicine conducted on animals. According to the Bright Side of News, researchers are hopeful that the capsule can be used to administer topical medications to treat ulcerative colitis and other inflammatory illnesses by maximizing the local concentration of the medications in the tissue to alleviate the inflammation.
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