Several potentially transformative treatments for cancer and HIV face a common obstacle—getting drugs into cells, which are designed to reject foreign materials.
A new microfluidic device, recently developed by a startup called SQZ Biotech, can get microscopic material into cells quickly and cheaply by vigorously squeezing those cells, temporarily making their membranes permeable.
Though the technology is only a research tool now, it might be just what’s needed to bring some promising new cancer and HIV therapies to patients. It could be used in a type of treatment that’s just starting to take off, called immunotherapy, which involves modifying a person’s immune cells to effectively target diseases such as cancer. Immunotherapy typically requires getting proteins or genetic material into the cells, often by drawing blood and modifying the cells outside of the body, then injecting them back into the patient.
SQZ says it may be able to significantly cut the costs of immunotherapy and improve its effectiveness, factors that have prevented the approach from being commercialized. Just last month, one of the pioneers in immunotherapy, Dendreon, declared bankruptcy after its high-cost treatment failed to sell quickly enough.