Lab Chat: How a tortoise inspired a new drug delivery method

A SELF-RIGHTING CAPSULE ORIENTS ITSELF IN THE GASTRIC CAVITY AND DELIVERS BIOLOGIC MOLECULES TO THE TISSUE WALL. (FELICE FRANKEL)

Scientists have come up with an unconventional way to deliver drugs to the human body — and took a page from leopard tortoise shells to design the new system. I chatted with MIT’s Robert Langer about the research.

How does the new device work?

We have this tiny little system in a capsule that dissolves in the stomach. … We have to have it tumble the same way every time so it always lands on the exact spot. We modeled this after a certain kind of tortoise.This tortoise’s shell helps it to self-orient every time it’s flipped.

How does the device work once it lands in the right spot?

We have a little spring inside the system, and in that spring we have this little post that has highly concentrated insulin. We want that spring to eject that insulin post out, but we don’t want it to do it right away. So we have it in an osmotic core made of sugar. Depending on the thickness of that core, we can control the ejection time [using] moisture as a trigger. Then the spring can eject the insulin post out. It basically injects the insulin into the stomach wall.