Professor Eleanor Stride at the University of Oxford has declared that medical science is focusing on the wrong problem: instead of inventing new drugs, scientists should be making better use of the drugs that we already have by targeting them on the affected part of the body.

Her research aims to revolutionise the treatment of major diseases by encasing drugs in ultrasound-activated ‘bubbles’, and thereby increase the amount of drug delivered to the target site while diminishing unpleasant and dangerous side-effects — such as nausea, hair loss and the risk of infection.

The drug-loaded bubbles are injected into the blood stream so that the drug can be released at a particular point by exposing the bubbles to ultrasound.

Professor Stride has been awarded the £300,000 IET AF Harvey Engineering Research Prize for her contribution to bio-medical engineering and her research into the treatment of major diseases.

The prize money will be used to further her research — in particular, developing new techniques for fabricating bubbles with a very high degree of control.

“We are still at a very early stage, but our recent results suggest that we can vastly improve the way we deliver existing drugs, and this could be far more effective in the long run than inventing new cures.

“Currently when drugs are injected, such as in the treatment of cancer or a stroke, only a tiny percentage actually reaches the site of the disease; the rest of the drug will affect healthy tissue and can lead to extremely unpleasant side-effects.

If we can maximise the amount of drug in the target area, we can both drastically improve its efficacy and reduce these side-effects.”