Drug Delivery is Going Viral

We all have ideas of what bubbles are, whether it’s a multicoloured orb floating on a breeze or a delicate pocket of gas in your champagne. Bubbles take many forms but few can imagine they would be helpful in the fight against cancer.

Here we examine the place these tiny bubbles have in medical diagnosis and drug delivery research, starting with the unique relationship between bubbles and sound. We will explore bubbles as therapeutic medicines, and look at why they are an exciting new technology for detecting and treating disease.

Some of our favourite things are produced using yeast as a key ingredient, whether that is through brewing or baking. However, recently we have discovered that we can also use yeast to help our immune systems fight infectious diseases. Researchers have modified yeast to produce vaccines for both Hepatitis B and Human papillomaviruses, which have been hugely effective in reducing the spread of the diseases caused by these viruses. Tonight, I will talk about how we are using yeast in the final push to fully eradicate poliovirus.