Years ago, we created a variety of slow-release products.  The goal was to manipulate the system to insure that we could achieve the desired results for 30 to 365 days.

Which is exactly what Drs. Y. Chapurina, V. Vinogradov, A. Vinogadov, V. Sobolev, I. Dudanov, and V. Vinagradov seems to have done to stop blood clot formations.  These folks published their results in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, “Synthesis of Thrombolytic Sol–Gel Coatings: Toward Drug-Entrapped Vascular Grafts.”  Yeah, I know, that title doesn’t really help you, does it?  But, if their product concept meets safety and efficiency requirements, you’ll get the benefits.

Right now, when we have vascular problems (blood vessels), we have a few options.  We can have stents inserted (this is basically a tube inserted into the vessel that “opens” it up) or employ an artificial blood vessel segment (vascular graft) if the vessel is fully occluded.  But, both of these solutions mean the patients will need permanent treatment with Coumadin (rat poison that we use as an anticoagulant), or the newly derived synthetics Xarelto or Eliquis to insure that blood clots don’t form along or in these foreign materials in our body.

These researchers (at the Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics University, St. Petersburg, Russia) have derived a coating that should preclude the formation of blood clots at the site of the graft. They employ nanomaterials- nanorods comprised of aluminum oxide- impregnated with urokinase plasminogen activator (uPa).  The activator is an enzyme, a protease (destroys proteins), one that converts plasminogen to plasmin.  This fibrinolysis ensures that blood clots can’t form.

The researchers effected in vitro (experiments NOT in animals or humans) whereby they demonstrated the destruction of blood clots in 10 to 80 minutes.   And, grafts that lacked these nanorod-uPa compounds clearly developed blood clots that did not disappear.  In real life, these specialized grafts would never let clots form in the first place.  (These tests were performed on fully formed clots, not with flowing blood that had yet to form the clots.)

They also tested their devices in Ringer’s solution (this is a saline solution that matches the non-proteinaceous composition of blood).   They were able to demonstrate that the uPa remained intact for at least 30 days.

It’s possible that the use of a different enzyme would find application for artificial ureters. One of the problems with these devices has been the formation of crystals in the vessel ducts, thereby occluding flow.  The trick for this application will be finding something that could dissolve the urease crystals.

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