Dr Chris McConville

Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutics, Formulation and Drug Delivery

University of Birmingham

Biography

ChemoSeed is a cylindrical, biodegradable drug eluting seed for the administration of chemotherapy directly into the resection margin of high-grade gliomas and is designed to deliver the chemotherapy for greater than 7 days.  The release is diffusion controlled, with the biodegradable polymer degrading at between 3- and 6-months post implantation when the chemotherapy is exhausted.  It provided localised delivery of a high local dose avoiding systemic toxicity, reducing side effects with no impact on wound healing.  The diameter of ChemoSeed allows for ease of administration using a 12-gauge biopsy needle or catheter, which adds minimal time (< 40 minutes) to current resection surgery procedures.  Between 15 and 60 seeds could be implanted into the brain parenchyma/ resection margin and a rate of 30 seconds per seed. ChenoSeed has been included onto the Tess Jowell BRAIN MATRIX clinical trial as a Phase II study.  This talk will take you through the development of ChemoSeed, from tissue culture and drug release studies to preclinical testing, demonstrating an accelerated development pathway that will see translation from concept to patient benefit within 5 years.