MISIS: Material for magnetically controlled release of drugs

The main articles are:

• Polymers in medicine
• Targeted delivery of drugs in the body

2025: Building a Smart Composite

Scientists have created a smart composite based on a metal alloy with a heat-sensitive coating polymer that can be used for. drug delivery Under the influence of a magnetic field, the metal substrate is cooled, which in turn leads to a sharp change in the physicochemical state of the polymer coating and the subsequent release of the drug. To activate the process, a magnetic field is sufficient, which is created, medical tomographs so the development can be used on serial equipment. This was announced on April 7, 2025. Russian Science Foundation (RSF)

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Фото: Russian Science Foundation

"Smart" or smart materials - materials whose structural, optical, mechanical and other properties change with varying environmental conditions (temperature, pressure, action of an electric or magnetic field and others). For example, thermosensitive polymers are used in medicine - their properties, in particular solubility, depend on the temperature of the environment. So, at some temperatures they completely dissolve in water, and at others they become insoluble. The thermosensitive polymers can be activated either directly by heating or by acting on them by a magnetic field under the influence of which the material is heated or cooled.

Magnetic activation of thermosensitive polymers can be used to deliver and release drugs. So, earlier scientists developed a composite material based on gadolinium and a polymer coating, the temperature of which changes under the action of a magnetic field. However, gadolinium is toxic to the human body, and changing its temperature requires a high-power magnetic field of 8 Tesla, while the magnetic fields of standard medical tomographs rarely exceed 3 Tesla.

Scientists from the National Research Technological University MISIS (Moscow) have developed a composite smart material for the magnetic field-controlled release of drugs. Proposed composite has two-layer structure and consists of iron-rhodium alloy cooled by magnetic field and polymer coating. As a polymer, the authors used a heat-sensitive poly (N-isopropylacrylamide): at a temperature above 32 ° C it is insoluble in water, and at lower values ​ ​ it turns into a soluble gel-like state. Due to the fact that the transition temperature between different states of this polymer is close to the temperature of the human body, it is considered a promising material for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and drug delivery.

Using a laser, the scientists modified the surface of the alloy by making "wells" on its surface at an equal distance from each other, into which doxorubicin, an antitumor used in chemotherapy of various types of cancer, was placed. A polymer coating was then applied which firmly "sealed" the drug.

Calculations have shown that the effects of a 1.8 Tesla magnetic field available in standard medical tomographs are sufficient to cool the composite from 37 ° C - the temperature of the human body - to 32 ° C, at which the polymer changes from a solid state to a gel-like state and releases "sealed" doxorubicin.

In addition, scientists experimentally tested how a drug is released from the material. To do this, the sample was heated to 37 ° C, after which a 3 Tesla magnetic field was turned on, which led to cooling of the system. By spectroscopy, the researchers were convinced that this leads to the release of doxorubicin.

Scientists also conducted biological testing of the composite material, placing connective tissue cells - fibroblasts - of mouse embryos on its surface and assessing their viability after three days. The experiment showed that the composite framework based on an iron-rhodium alloy with a polymer coating has high biocompatibility and does not lead to the death of healthy living cells. Thus, the proposed material could potentially be used for biomedical purposes.

Our approach is based on the magnetocaloric effect observed in the iron-rhodium alloy substrate. The nature of this effect consists in changing the temperature of the magnetic material in the absence of heat exchange with the environment during its magnetization or demagnetization in the external magnetic field. The proposed material is convenient in that it is possible to activate the release of the drug from it by a single inclusion of the 3 Tesla magnetic field available in modern magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices. In the future, we plan to test the feasibility of this model on the scale of micro- and nanoparticles of iron-rhodium alloy. This is a complex research task: from developing a technology for obtaining the particles themselves and creating polymer structures based on them to conducting experiments that demonstrate the final effect. In addition, we hope that the continuation of research will open up new opportunities for the use of this unique alloy, "says Abdulkarim Amirov, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, employee of the National Research Technological University of MISIS, project manager supported by a grant from the Russian National Research Institute of Science.

The study was attended by employees of the Dagestan Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Makhachkala), the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushchino), Lomonosov Moscow State University  (Moscow) and   the V. A. Kotelnikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics (Moscow).