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Water bear3/24/2023 ![]() ![]() More than that, insulin could become accessible to some remote locales that are currently out of reach for refrigerated transport.Ī series of studies led by Maynard over the last three years has demonstrated pTrMA’s potential. And an extended shelf life would cut back on both wasted medicine and potentially dangerous situations where expired insulin delivers an inadequate dose. As a result, insulin must be handled with care and transported in refrigerated compartments.Īccordingly, insulin that remains stable for longer without refrigeration could reduce the drug’s cost by making logistics less expensive. When exposed to heat or shaken up too much, insulin proteins can clump in ways that gum up needles, make the medicine less effective or even prompt a harmful reaction from the body’s natural defenses. ![]() With support and guidance from the UCLA Innovation Fund, a program designed to facilitate the commercialization of UCLA-owned therapies and other health-related technologies, Maynard and her team opted to investigate pTrMA’s effects on insulin, a World Health Organization “essential medicine” that many people with diabetes inject daily to manage the disease. “However, that our polymer outperformed trehalose was not expected.” “We figured that if trehalose could stabilize entire organisms, that makes it a pretty good stabilizer,” said Maynard, who is also the associate director of technology and development at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. Her polymer, called poly(trehalose methacrylate), or pTrMA, actually seems to improve upon nature in its ability to render drugs more robust to the ravages of time and temperature. Myung Ki Hong Chair in Polymer Science, invented a polymer based on the sugar. For a few select organisms, such as the water bear and the spiky resurrection plant, that can revive after years of near-zero metabolism and complete dehydration, trehalose’s stabilizing power is the secret to their unearthly fortitude.Īrmed with this insight, Maynard, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry who holds UCLA’s Dr. It turns out that one of the process protecting tardigrades is spurred by a sugar molecule called trehalose, commonly found in living things from plants to microbes to insects, some of which use it as blood sugar. If she could understand the mechanism behind this extraordinary preservation, Maynard reckoned, she might be able to use the knowledge to improve medicines so that they remain potent longer and are less vulnerable to typical environmental challenges, ultimately broadening access and benefiting human health. Tardigrades have been shown to endure extremes of heat, cold and pressure - and even the vacuum of space - by entering a state of suspended animation and revitalizing, sometimes decades later, under more hospitable conditions. This stocky microscopic animal, also known as a water bear, can survive in environments where survival seems impossible. UCLA chemist Heather Maynard had to wonder: How do organisms like the tardigrade do it?
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