Scientists Create Indestructible Medicine

[00:00:00]One of the science startups I support just killed refrigerators, meaning that rather shipping medicines in minus 80° freezers, you can simply put them straight in the post. Many of the medicines we use today rely on proteins which only work if they maintain their very specific shapes. But outside of the fridge, as the molecules heat up, they start to vibrate faster until the proteins begin to unfold and break in a process called denaturing. But for medicines, just room temperature is warm enough to cause this, and unfolded proteins can no longer bind to receptor sites and lose their therapeutic effect.

[00:00:28]a problem if medicines encounter broken fridges or delays and can mean that entire shipments go to waste, particularly in remote areas where the last leg of the journey is often in an ice box on the back of a donkey. To solve this, the team developed a process called insilication. They use a solution of nano silica, the same material that makes up glass or sand, and use it to form a tiny silica shell around each individual protein, like a tiny medicinal Han Solo locked in carbonite.

[00:00:52]That shell does two things. It prevents medicine unfolding even in desert heat, and it stops the proteins from clumping together. When injected, your body can remove the silica shell and pass it out as waste and gain access to the medicine inside. To test the power of their process, they submerged a trial medicine in boiling water for over 48 hours, then sent it across the world for testing, not in a standard cold chain fridge, but in an envelope. When it arrived, they tested its response in a mouse model and found it had 99.7% efficacy compared to the 0% efficacy of a similarly boiled but not insilicated control medicine. Silica is already a well-established inorganic excipient used in tablets and it is FDA approved even for oral delivery. This actually unlocks really interesting potential as the shell survives the acidic environment of the stomach and only breaks down in the alkaline environment of the gut, meaning that some medicines that are usually injection only can be administered in a pill form. And the team is even working on a gummy bear version to help get vaccines into remote villages. This has been one of my favorite companies to build because with this technology, life-saving medicines can reach rainforests, deserts, war zones, and anywhere a fridge can't follow. And it can reduce the manufacturing cost of a vaccine by up to 50%. The team at Stabilitech are now working with researchers around the world to test their first real products, with one of the first vaccine candidates being for the hantavirus. And allowing us to finally see if we can give the cold chain the cold shoulder. If you're a scientist similarly interested in saving the world, I'd like to talk to you. I'll leave a link down in the description. And if you like science that solidifies your faith in humanity, follow for more.