University of Mississippi engineers pioneer LSD microdosing device – local voice

A new company supporting preclinical research on a biodegradable product

by Erin Garrett

University of Mississippi engineers will soon conduct preclinical testing of an implantable device that microdoses LSD and other psychoactive drugs to combat treatment-resistant depression.

Tomasz Werfelassistant professor biomedical engineeringAND Glenn Walkerprofessor of biomedical engineering, launched INTERVAL THERAPY LIMITED introduce the three-year project to the next stage of development. The project recently received funding from the state budget Strengthening academic research in Mississippi through the Business Act.

“Honestly, it was just a crazy idea for a few years, and then we started ramping it up and getting to work,” Werfel said. “We heard from doctors who were really interested microdosing psychedelics for depression.”

According to a 2021 study, nearly 9 million Americans are being treated for depression, and nearly 31% of this group have been diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression.

Treatment options are limited for people with treatment-resistant depression. One approach is to wait a longer time for the antidepressant to take effect, and the other is to add additional medications to the patient’s treatment regimen. Both are burdensome for the patient.

A possible alternative is microdosing, which involves taking a small enough amount of a psychoactive drug so that it does not cause hallucinations. Repeated microdosing of medications, e.g L.S.D. AND psilocybin have been reported to have surprising benefits.

“There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that it improves mood and creativity and helps people struggling with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and even alcohol addiction,” Werfel said.

However, the main challenge associated with administering psychoactive drugs is the potential for abuse. In 2020, Werfel and Walker set out to answer the question of how exactly to deliver these drugs so that they cannot be abused or repurposed.

“Our device is fully biodegradable and can be implanted, which guarantees delivery of the drug within the expected time frame,” Werfel said. “The goal is to implant a very small device that will microdose a psychedelic every three to five days over an extended period of time.

“It then penetrates the body, eliminating the need to retrieve the device.”

Walker has a background in microfabrication. He was intrigued when Werfel initially approached him about the project.

“We started talking and I told him about some cool techniques we could use to build a new type of drug delivery device,” Walker said. “I take tools typically used in the semiconductor sensor industry and apply them to biomedical problems instead.

“Microfabrication opens up many interesting possibilities for drug delivery that have not been explored before.”

Walker said the device is about the size of a grain of rice. This makes it easy to inject under the skin, where it periodically delivers the medicine and dissolves when finished.

“The really exciting thing about this device is that it can be used to treat a wide variety of diseases,” he said. “Anything that requires multiple doses: heart medications, diabetes, and so on.

“Our initial focus is on depression, but we expect other applications to emerge. Theoretically, you can go to the doctor, get an injection and treatment will be provided for a whole month or longer.”

Werfel and Walker are in the process of obtaining funds for their company to conduct advanced preclinical tests of the device. The ultimate goal is to obtain investigational new drug status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for human clinical trials, although this could take several years.

Werfel said their startup is “Olu Lady-adult through and through.”

“We, the professors, create the technology here on campus and then worked with the Technology Commercialization Office on our patents,” he said. “The Law School’s Transactional Law Clinic has also helped us—every aspect of this case has been made possible through campus resources so far.”

Walker said the campus has a lot of untapped potential for this work.

“For me, the biggest win is a successful startup with a drug delivery product that appears to work in treating depression,” he said. “While drug delivery is difficult and pharma startups have a low success rate, we are cautiously optimistic.

“I think this would be a huge victory for treating depression in general because it solves a lot of the problems with current treatment.”