ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF ELECTROPORATION DRUG AND GENE DELIVERY

Prof.Dr. Damijan Miklavčič

Permeabilizing electric pulses can be advantageously used for DNA electrotransfer in vivo for gene therapy, as well as for drug delivery. In both cases it is essential to know the electric field distribution in the tissues: the targeted tissue must be submitted to electric field intensities above the reversible permeabilization threshold and below the irreversible permeabilization threshold (to avoid cytotoxic effects of the electric pulses). A three-dimensional finite element model was built for different electrodes used in various in vivo experiments. Electrodes of different geometries were modelled by applying appropriate boundary conditions in corresponding grid points of the model. The anatomically based model was previously validated by comparing our calculations with magnetic resonance current density imaging and electrochemotherapy for specific electrodes. The observations resulting from the numerical calculations, like mean electric field magnitude within the tumors are in good correlation with the effectivenes of electrochemotherapy.