The team in collaboration of Carnegie Mellon University researchers Sai Yerneni, Phil Campbell, Burak Ozdoganlar, and Ezgi Yalcintas has created an approach to uniquely enable the use of curcumin as a robust therapeutic.science has found that its main chemical component, as curcumin.

Figure 1: Microneedles- curcumin as a robust therapeutic

Figure 1 shows that curcumin is an anti-cancerous, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and anti-bacterial polyphenol found in. However, its isolated, pure form is not stable due to its rapid degradation within and clearance from the body. This represents one of the largest obstacles to its translation as a practical therapeutic. [1]

One such encapsulation approach is to incorporate curcumin into exosomes. Exosomes are nanometric extracellular vesicles that the human body uses for cell-to-cell communication by moving proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and metabolites. By placing curcumin in exosomes, the chemical is stable enough to travel throughout the body and achieve its therapeutic effect.

Researchers have developed a hybrid approach to leverage the unique properties of both exosomes and albumin.They engineered an exosome-albumin hybrid system to deliver therapeutics, including curcumin.

Although albumin-curcumin association and exosome encapsulation could provide a stable drug delivery system, targeted delivery to desired tissues or organs remain another challenge.When injected into the blood, most of the exosomes tend to accumulate in the liver rather than reaching the targeted organ or tissue. [2]

To this end, an attractive method is to have the curcumin-albumin-containing exosomes delivered using microneedle array patches for skin-targeted applications.Microneedle arrays or MNA contain tens or hundreds of needles, each as thin as human hair and not seen by the naked eye.

These micro-scale needles are arranged in an array format on a patch tinier than a penny through a manufacturing and application process.In this circumstance, dissolvable microneedles are formed by incorporating the drug, exosomes, with a sugar type and having them solidified into their shape.When injected into the tissue, the needles dissolve away and deliver the drug in a targeted and accurate manner. Because of their small size, microneedles are not causing tissue damage.

As such, they can be employed as a "pain-free" method of delivering treatments into or through the skin, enhancing patient compliance and targeted delivery.When the exosome-fortified curcumin compounds were combined into MNAs, the researchers discovered that the stability of such compounds at room temperature dramatically increased. [3]

References:

1. https://www.enggtalks.com/news/223881/microneedles-unlock-curcumin-s-therapeutic-potential
2. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-microneedles-curcumin-therapeutic-potential.html
3. https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/39438/20220818/curcumin-found-effective-treatment-against-skin-conditions-using-microneedles.htm

Cite this article:

Sri Vasagi K (2022), New Unique Use of Curcumin as a Robust Therapeutic - Microneedle, AnaTechMaz, pp.101