An Australian invention that gained scientific attention for being able to “unboil” an egg has now been put to significant use in the treatment of cancer.
Professor Colin Raston of Flinders University in Adelaide created the vortex fluidic device after he did some brainstorming during a long haul flight between Los Angeles and Sydney.
“The design was actually put together on that 15-hour flight and the rest is history,” he said.
“We now have these devices that are delivering stunning results.”
The vortex fluidic device was first tested recently on a hen egg, and researchers managed to pull apart its tangled proteins and return the egg white to an earlier state.
Professor Raston said the device allowed more tightly controlled chemical processes to be performed, saving researchers time and reducing their materials wastage.
One application already found allows improved delivery of a common cancer treatment drug, carboplatin, which is used against ovarian and lung cancers.
The device has allowed drug potency to be boosted as much as four-and-a-half-times, Professor Raston said.
“The drug is released at the tumour so the consequence of that [is] you need less drug and you reduce the side-effects.
“In terms of the bigger picture, you’re minimising the amount of drug that ends up as waste because most of the drugs we take end up in the waste, in sewage.”
Cancer drug used with fewer side-effects
Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer director Professor Ross McKinnon said it meant a huge advance for cancer treatment.
“It gives us the promise of offering an alternative where we have more drug being delivered to the tumour and less drug being delivered to the rest of the body,” he said.
“That means less side-effects for the patient and hopefully a much better effect in terms of tumour response.
“What this group are doing is an example of one drug but we would hope we could extend this to many drugs.”
The device can process proteins more efficiently than current methods, with possible big ramifications for the pharmaceuticals industry.
“You reduce the amount of waste you generate, you increase the yield of your protein and you reduce the processing time,” Professor Raston said.
“That’s important for developing processes to offer a sustainable future, in terms of minimising the impact of it on the planet.”
More of the vortex fluidic devices are being made and some will be sent to researchers collaborating across Australia and overseas.
Professor Raston is hopeful the devices will soon be sold worldwide.
“Flinders University’s in the process of establishing a spin-out company so ultimately — hopefully this year — we’ll have a company where we’re actually selling these devices,” he said.
“There are 10,000 universities in the world and this has got applications in chemistry, engineering, biology, medicine, so there’s a lot of potential there and that’s just for research purposes.”
The device already has been used to produce biodiesel.