Medicine delivery via microbubbles could be made possible using sound waves

New research has shown that microbubbles, which can be used to deliver drugs to remote parts of the body, can be manipulated by sound waves. Drugs can sometimes be difficult to deliver to specific areas of the body. One way to reach these areas is via microbubbles, which are the subject of intense research for this purpose. Researchers can use several methods to manipulate these microbubbles, including the use of light and sound, although the potential of the latter remains largely unexplored. Our findings suggest that acoustical tweezers could be even better than optical ones at manipulating microbubbles, as sound waves can reach deeper into the body Dr Valeria Garbin Department of Chemical Engineering Now, new research has shown for the first time that sound waves, or 'acoustical tweezers', can manipulate and move microbubbles using ultrasound, can trigger the deployment of drugs from the microbubbles, and can do so in a localised way which means they can target specific body parts. The early-stage findings on mimicked biological tissue could pave the way for directing drug-encapsulating microbubbles to hard-to-reach parts of the body like the brain. The research was carried out by a team at Imperial led by Dr Diego Baresch and Dr Valeria Garbin in the Department of Chemical Engineering.