A new robot that has been designed to chew like a human could pave the way for an increased use of chewing gum as a medication delivery system.
The use of chewing gum for delivering drugs into the system via the oral cavity is not new.
A review published on PharmaTutor a decade ago noted that medicated chewing gum was already available that could release chlorhexidine as a local disinfectant, nicotine for smoking cessation, aspirin as an analgesic, and caffeine to aid alertness.
One lingering problem, however, is that there has been no gold standard for testing and regulating the rates of drug release via chewing.
This has created an obstacle when it comes to the development of medicated chewing gums where dosage and rate of release could be crucial.
Now, a team of researchers from Bristol University has developed a humanoid robot that can closely replicate the way that a human chews over time, allowing pharmaceutical companies to develop medicated chewing gums.
A study published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering described how an experiment compared the amount of the artificial sweetener xylitol that was released from chewing gum by the robot and human volunteers.
Chewing robot was compared to a cohort of human volunteers
Saliva samples and artificial saliva from the robot were collected at intervals of five minutes of continuous chewing for a 20-minute period.
They found that the gum chewed by the robot released the sweetener at a similar rate as that chewed by the human participants.
The xylitol was released at a faster rate and greater volume in the first five minutes of chewing in both cases.
After 20 minutes of continuous chewing, the gum bolus – a mixture of the gum and saliva – was found to contain only a very small amount of xylitol.
Dr Kazem Alemzadeh, senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the lead author of the research, said: ‘Bioengineering has been used to create an artificial oral environment that closely mimics that found in humans.
‘Our research has shown the chewing robot gives pharmaceutical companies the opportunity to investigate medicated chewing gum.’
Co-author Nicola West, a professor in Restorative Dentistry at the Bristol Dental School, added that oral delivery was the most convenient way of administering drugs to patients.
‘This research, utilising a novel humanoid artificial oral environment, has the potential to revolutionise investigation into oral drug release and delivery,’ she added.
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