2021 Schmidt Science Fellow Vivian Feig aspires to make it easier for everyone to access cutting-edge medical technology that is seamlessly integrated into our lives. That includes people living in the most remote corners of the Earth, or maybe even on future space missions to Mars. 

Nestled in Stanford’s mechanical engineering department, under swaying Californian palms, is a new lab.

Here, Vivian develops next-generation materials to solve the problems that make medical devices expensive, complicated, and difficult for people to use.

Medical implants, for example, are surgically inserted and then removed at the end of their lifespan. 

That requires anaesthesia and sterilization, something that is only accessible to a fraction of the world’s population. 

Vivian’s interdisciplinary lab harnesses chemistry and physics to explore game-changing questions: could devices be made from biodegradable materials, or could a material be designed so that it senses the body’s biological signals and automatically responds?

The Feig Lab has recently developed a new type of injectable drug technology that sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. 

It can flow like a liquid, but once under the skin, it reassembles itself into a solid implant that can slowly release a drug. Importantly, it can be self-injected.

“My postdoctoral training really helped me to understand the patient perspective and user needs, and they really care about having small needles,” says Vivian.

“Many long-acting implants have been developed that are injectable and flowable, but when you actually look at the needle gauges it takes to administer many of them, it’s like injecting yourself with a grain of rice or larger. It’s actually quite painful.”

“Many long-acting implants have been developed that are injectable and flowable,” she adds. “But when you actually look at the needle gauges it takes to administer many of them, it’s like injecting yourself with a grain of rice or larger. It’s actually quite painful.”

Instead of relying on polymers as the vehicle for getting a drug into the body, which makes the formulation too thick and sticky to pass through a narrow needle, Vivian’s team designed a technology called SLIM (self-aggregating, long-acting, injectable microcrystals). 

This comprises mostly the drug itself (in this case, a contraceptive) mixed with solvents that cause the drug crystals to stick together and compact into a single implant once inside the body. 

SLIM can be injected through a 0.31mm-wide needle (the same size as those used for self-injection of insulin or weight-control drugs). So far, it’s shown promising results in rats, steadily releasing the drug over 97 days.

There is significant global demand for long-acting, self-administered drugs, and this technology could have significant and positive impacts on the quality of life for many people. 

The potential range of applications and benefits is huge, especially in resource-constrained environments, where somebody might not be able to easily and regularly get to the clinic. 

“Once you start thinking about very resource-limited locations, that also applies to things like long-range space travel, and how do you think about medicine when you’re going on missions to Mars?” Vivian enthuses. 

Long-acting drugs are much easier and less painful for patients than having to take a daily pill or injection. But just as importantly, they’re also known to improve patient adherence, how well a patient sticks to their prescribed medications. 

Vivian started out in chemical engineering and petrochemicals, and her PhD focused on creating electricity-conducting polymers, which could potentially be interfaced with biological systems. 

Her Schmidt Science Fellowship, at MIT, provided the support to explore better drug delivery systems to help patients stick to their medications. 

“Having that opportunity to make a big pivot and try something risky in a different field, and the financial foundation and support to do that, was just huge,” she says. “Not only from a practical perspective of learning something new, but also having a community that I knew was supportive of interdisciplinary science.”

Jumping between disciplines comes as second nature. In high school, while Vivian liked maths and science, she was actually more interested in journalism and debating. But improving people’s lives has always been a common interest.

“It occurred to me that I cared a lot about social problems and social impact, but a really powerful way to actually affect change was to develop new technology,” she explains. 

Engineering also involved many of the things she enjoyed most about the humanities: being creative, problem solving and coming up with logical arguments. 

“In line with the ethos of Schmidt Science Fellows, I’ve learned that these barriers between different ways of thinking are not so rigid and are actually very complementary,” she adds.

Looking ahead, she would love to see something her lab has developed create impact, particularly if it could increase the accessibility of treatments or therapies.

Vivian’s also excited about the future possibilities of using so-called ‘electroceuticals’—the therapeutic use of electrical signals to treat disorders like chronic pain or gastrointestinal disorders, instead of having to rely on drugs.

“One area we’re thinking about is how we can make an injectable formulation that will form into an electroceutical that can be interrogated wirelessly; you could just have a patch on the body that is activating. Then you’d get all the benefits of that electronic medicine, but in the convenience of a form that patients are already used to with conventional medication.”

One thing is certain: Vivian won’t be held back by traditional disciplinary boundaries. Next stop Mars?