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Targeted delivery of magnetic aerosol droplets to the lung

Nature Nanotechnology volume 2, pages 495–499 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The inhalation of medical aerosols is widely used for the treatment of lung disorders such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease1, cystic fibrosis2, respiratory infection3 and, more recently, lung cancer4. Targeted aerosol delivery to the affected lung tissue may improve therapeutic efficiency and minimize unwanted side effects. Despite enormous progress in optimizing aerosol delivery to the lung, targeted aerosol delivery to specific lung regions other than the airways or the lung periphery has not been adequately achieved to date5,6. Here, we show theoretically by computer-aided simulation, and for the first time experimentally in mice, that targeted aerosol delivery to the lung can be achieved with aerosol droplets comprising superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles—so-called nanomagnetosols—in combination with a target-directed magnetic gradient field. We suggest that nanomagnetosols may be useful for treating localized lung disease, by targeting foci of bacterial infection or tumour nodules.

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Figure 1: Characteristics of the electromagnet used in the in vivo experiments.
Figure 2: Computer-based simulations of nanomagnetosol targeting.
Figure 3: Nanomagnetosol application in mice.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the Nanotechnology (Nanomagnetomedicine) programme, grants 13N8539, 13N8535, 13N8537, and in part by the BioFuture programme (0311898).

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Author notes

  1. Carsten Rudolph is a Present address: Department of Pediatrics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Lindwurmstr. 2a, Kubus, D-80337 Munich, Germany

  2. Carsten.Rudolph@med.uni-muenchen.de

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, 80337, Germany

    Petra Dames, Andreas Flemmer, Kerstin Hajek, Joseph Rosenecker & Carsten Rudolph

  2. Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Biopharmacy and Biotechnology, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, 12169, Germany

    Petra Dames & Carsten Rudolph

  3. Heinz Nixdorf-Lehrstuhl für medizinische Elektronik, Technical University Munich, Munich, 80333, Germany

    Bernhard Gleich, Nicole Seidl & Thomas Weyh

  4. Department of Biosignals, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, 10587, Germany

    Frank Wiekhorst, Dietmar Eberbeck & Lutz Trahms

  5. Department of Pathology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, 80337, Germany

    Iris Bittmann

  6. Chemicell GmbH, Berlin, 10823, Germany

    Christian Bergemann

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Contributions

C.R., T.W., A.F. and J.R. conceived and designed the experiments. P.D., B.G., K.H. and N.S. performed the experiments. P.D., C.R., A.F. and B.G. analysed the data. F.W., D.E., L.T., I.B. and C.B. contributed materials and analysis tools. C.R., P.D., T.W., B.G., A.F. and J.R. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. P.D. and B.G. equally contributed to the work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carsten Rudolph.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary figures S1–S6 (PDF 445 kb)

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Dames, P., Gleich, B., Flemmer, A. et al. Targeted delivery of magnetic aerosol droplets to the lung. Nature Nanotech 2, 495–499 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.217

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