Question: Have you had any new ideas to deliver drugs before?

Jess Smith answered on 11 Mar 2014:

I don’t personally work on drug delivery so haven’t come up with any new ideas in this area.

It’s an area that I find very interesting though! So I will tell you my favourite drug delivery ideas that other people have had recently if that helps:

It is called targeted delivery. This is where you encase the drug in another molecule. Imagine a sphere with a ball trapped inside it. Then you chemically program the drug only to release in certain conditions. For example, if you want a drug that is only delivered to the stomach, then you trap it in a molecule that will dissolve at the PH of the stomach and not before. Every organ has different conditions, so scientists work on finding molecules that will only break down in those conditions. This is helpful, because a lot of drugs have side effects, but these will be greatly reduced if the drug is only released at the site of disease. It means you can give a higher dose, with fewer bad side effects. It also reduces the amount of drug that is wasted. I like how clever and efficient it is.