The design of a new capacitor-powered smart pill is underway to deliver key medications directly to patients’ large intestines. Measuring the same dimensions as a 000-sized gelatin capsule, the device must be charged before use and is activated when a magnet worn on an individual's waist triggers a switch within the pill. This mechanism allows scientists to initiate the precise moment at which medication will be released.
“Usually, when you take medication it is absorbed in the stomach and small intestine before making it to the large intestine,” said Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. “However, there are many medications that you would like to deliver specifically to the large intestine, and a smart capsule is an ideal targeted-delivery vehicle for this.”
The diseases to be targeted include Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and the potential to treat life-threatening bacterial infection, Clostridium difficile, where the body loses its natural microorganisms needed to fight off infection.
C. difficile is currently treated by transplanting feces from another person into the person’s large intestine, which provides vital microbes. Ziaie states that it may now be possible to convert microbes into a powder through freeze-drying and delivering them to the capsules instead.
To test the smart capsule, researchers mimicked the gastrointestinal tract through use of a “fluidic model.” They also generated an experiment that recreates the changing acidity and peristalsis of the stomach and intestines as food passes through.
“It takes up to 12 hours to get to the large intestine, so we wanted to make sure the smart capsule can withstand conditions in the gastrointestinal tract,” Ziaie said.
Research is still ongoing and the future may require human-tested patients.
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