The adrenal gland produces hormones, such as cortisol, that are vital for life-long health.

Conditions connected to the dysfunction of these hormones affect 4 million Australians a year, costing an estimated $2 billion.

Adrenal conditions require lifelong drug replacement therapy, with no cure available.

Professor Lee Smith and colleagues Dr Anne-Louise Gannon and Dr Roger Liang have secured a $733,000 National Health and Medical Research Council grant.

The money will be used for a three-year project that aims to develop novel drug treatments and single-injection cures for adrenal disease using "nanobiotechnology".

Professor Smith said nanoparticles will be used as a delivery system to carry medicines or replacement genes to specific cells in the adrenal gland.

"We add a small molecule - a peptide - to the outer surface of the nanoparticles," Professor Smith said.

This recognises and binds to a specific receptor that is present only on the surface of adrenal gland cells.

"Using this approach, nanoparticles delivered in a single injection will find their way through the body to the correct cell type," Professor Smith said.

"These nanoparticles release their contents into the adrenal cells."

These contents will be a medicine or a new gene to replace a genetic defect. It's a highly targeted treatment, as the nanoparticles ignore all the other cells in the body.

Professor Smith said existing treatment options had been developed over decades.

"They are safe and excellent for managing adrenal conditions. But for some conditions, it can mean lifelong delivery of medicines or hormones to suppress or replace impaired adrenal function," he said.

Dr Gannon said nanoparticles were "well established for enhanced delivery of medicines for various disorders and tissues, most notably cancer drug delivery".

Their flexibility, low toxicity and targeting ability meant they offered "an opportunity to develop more effective and personalised treatment options".

Dr Gannon said delivery of medicines using nanoparticles would "reduce the doses required, while using a gene therapy approach to repair the problem once and for all". Using this approach, rather than simply treating the symptoms, would be a big step forward.

The adrenal gland is responsible for producing three main steroid hormones - cortisol, aldosterone and androgens.

Cortisol - the most widely known of these hormones - regulates the stress response.

Aldosterone is required to regulate blood pressure and adrenal androgens are essential for early reproductive development. Disruption to the production or action of any of the adrenal hormones can have a mild impact, or lead to chronic conditions.

"The most common disruption is aldosterone which regulates our blood pressure. In rarer cases, the adrenal glands can become either overactive or underactive, resulting in either Cushing's syndrome or Addison's disease," Professor Smith said.

Disruption to all three hormones is seen in complex conditions such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which pose significant treatment challenges. As such, the team will focus on this condition, as it posed "a complex challenge".

The project will be done in the laboratory, with a focus on further developing the nanoparticle approach.

Much more work beyond the scope of the three-year project will be needed before clinical trials occur in humans. So far the technology "shows significant promise".

Dr Gannon says Australia's older population is predicted to more than double to 12.8 million over the next 25 years. This means more patients will require lifelong treatment, if the current approaches continue.

"A single injection cure for one or more conditions would be a great addition to treatment options," she said.

Such a treatment would benefit patients and the health system, given it would significantly reduce healthcare costs.

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