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ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

Hydrogels on demand

How hydrogels could lead to flare-responsive therapies for inflammatory diseases

May 3, 2018 5:51 PM UTC

Alivio Therapeutics is using a hydrogel platform to develop controlled-release therapies for inflammatory diseases that respond to flare-ups as they occur. The approach, described in an April Nature Communications study, could avoid systemic toxicities associated with oral drugs and require less frequent dosing than locally injected drugs.

Study author Jeffrey Karp said the hydrogels comprise nanostructures formed by layers of amphiphilic molecules that contain a bond cleavable by tissue- and cell-degrading enzymes present during inflammation. Karp is a co-founder of Alivio and a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital...