Electroporation in vivo and in vitro is limited by the necessity of electrodes that need to be in contact with the subject to be electroporated. In order to generate electric fields of sufficient strength for electroporation to occur, electrodes generally must be in physical contact with the tissue to be electroporated.
The present project aims to provide evidence that magnetic antenna applicators can efficiently induce electric fields able to electroporate, thus demonstrating, broadly speaking, the feasibility of their use in a non invasive electrochemotherapy for deeply seated tumors. The idea seems winning if one thinks that biological tissues are magnetic transparent (i.e. magnetic field is not altered by the human body) but, due to their conductivity, electric current density and electric field can be easily induced thank to the Faraday's law. The project will be exploited through three main steps: the first step will be to design and realize the magnetic applicator for electroporation, second and third step will be to demonstrate its ability to porate liposomes (experimentally) and real cells (computationally).
Electroporation in vivo and in vitro is limited by the necessity of electrodes that need to be in contact with the subject to be electroporated. In order to generate electric fields of sufficient strength for electroporation to occur, electrodes generally must be in physical contact with the tissue to be electroporated. Methods which do not use contact electrodes, including helium plasma and spark discharge, have only been shown to permeabilize skin cells, but not cells in underlying tissue, and their effectiveness in larger animals and humans has not been demonstrated. The use of invasive electrodes such as needle electrodes which are most effective for electroporating cells located in human skin as well as in a variety of underlying tissues has a number of disadvantages: the electrodes must be sterile and must be placed into the tissue uniformly and with sterile technique; insertion of the electrodes and subsequent delivery of electric pulses causes pain; the size of the area and the depth and location of tissue that can be electroporated is quite limited; and side effects such as burns at spots of high current density may occur.
We wanted to overcome the inherent disadvantages of electrodes in producing electric fields by circumventing the use of electrodes altogether and instead achieve the induction of electric fields by employing changing magnetic fields.
We propose the use of magnetic fields, which do not require material contact with the subject, to temporarily permeabilize cells in a perspective of electrochemotherapy for deep seated tumors, the main idea is that magnetic fields can trigger a process likely similar to electroporation.. Advantages of magneto-electropermeabilization over standard electoporation include: No contact between applicator and subject (¿contact-less¿); no need for invasive, disposable, sterile electrodes (¿needle-less¿); no pain from needles and reduced overall pain; no known side effects; easier and faster to administer than electroporation; less expensive due to absence of disposables; and, importantly, greater tissue penetration of the magnetic field allowing treatment of anatomical areas inaccessible by electroporation. In addition to the advantages over electropermeabilization enumerated above, magnetopermeabilization is easier to administer and faster to perform since no preparatory or clean-up steps are necessary.
While the concept of using magnetic fields for electrodeless, and thus contact-less, electropermeabilization has been considered for some time, the practical realization of this concept has not been pursued
In this project we intend to demonstrate that magneto-electropermeabilization is indeed feasible, and that it can be achieved with relatively expensive and portable equipment.
Magnetopermeabilization has the potential of becoming a simpler yet more broadly applicable method than electropermeabilization for reasons discussed above.