1. Silk-Elastinlike Protein Polymers for Localized Release of Sorafenib in the Treatment of
Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Erik Olson, Hamid Ghandehari, Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, IEEE
Abstract—Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) affects over half a million people each year and
5 year survival rates remain below 12%. Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is
showing promise as a new therapy for HCC. TACE involves using a material that will
block tumor blood supply and will locally release chemotherapeutics that lead to tumor
necrosis. The purpose of this research is to investigate the potential of silk-elastinlike
protein polymer (SELP) 815K, as a drug delivery motive for the new chemotherapeutic
drug, sorafenib, in the application of TACE. Due to rapid release of small molecules from
within the SELP polymer matrix, sorafenib is first incorporated into PLGA nanoparticles
in order to slow release. These particles are characterized in order to determine feasibility
in this application. The sorafenib loaded nanoparticles made with PLGA of molecular
weight 4,000 Da, have average size of 111 nm ± 28 nm, a weight percent of 4.7% ± 0.2%,
and an encapsulation efficiency of 13.0% ± 0.5%. In addition these particles match closely
to their empty counterparts made with the same PLGA, allowing the empty particles to
serve as an accurate control. However, sorafenib release profile from these particles is too
rapid for this application and future work will investigate other nanoparticle carrier
systems.
Key Words- Nanoparticle loading, PLGA nanoparticles, sorafenib release, transarterial
chemoembolization.