Multirate delivery of multiple therapeutic agents from metal-organic frameworks

Abstract

REM is a Royal Society Industry Fellow and thanks the Royal Society for the provision of the Brian Mercer Award for Innovation, and thanks Scottish Enterprise for support. REM also thanks the British Heart Foundation for a New Horizons Award (NH/11/8/29253). REM and TD thank the EPSRC for funding (EP/K025112/1 and EP/K005499/1).The highly porous nature of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offers great potential for the delivery of therapeutic agents. Here, we show that highly porous metal-organic frameworks can be used to deliver multiple therapeutic agents—a biologically active gas, an antibiotic drug molecule, and an active metal ion—simultaneously but at different rates. The possibilities offered by delivery of multiple agents with different mechanisms of action and, in particular, variable timescales may allow new therapy approaches. Here, we show that the loaded MOFs are highly active against various strains of bacteria.Peer reviewe