China’s ‘pig semen eyedrop’ may treat Alzheimer’s: scientist in Australia

Pigs were chosen because their tissue structure is similar to that of humans and their raw materials are abundant.

Photo: Shutterstock An innovative therapy using pig semen-derived exosomes, engineered into eye drops capable of penetrating deep into retinal tissue, may hold the key to breaching the brain’s defences against diseases like Alzheimer’s.

This breakthrough, led by Professor Zhang Yu at China’s Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, originally targeted a rare childhood eye cancer retinoblastoma that often resists conventional treatments due to its delicate location near the brain.

Published in peer-reviewed journal Science Advances on March 27, the research shows how exosomes, or natural nanoparticles from pig semen, can safely deliver drugs through biological barriers.

Zhao Chunxia, a drug delivery researcher at the University of Adelaide Australia, noted the technology’s broad potential. “The technique could improve drug delivery across other barriers that are similarly difficult to breach, such as the blood-brain barrier, to treat conditions including Alzheimer’s disease,” she was quoted by Nature News as saying on the same day.

This isn’t the first time Chinese scientists have turned to pigs for creative medical breakthroughs.

In 2025, researchers injected a drug that “disguised” tumours as pig tissue, tricking the immune system into attacking them.

And over 2024-2025, the world’s first pig-liver and pig-lung transplants were performed in China, using gene-edited pigs to eliminate rejection-causing genes.

This time, the key was penetration.

During sperm’s long journey towards the egg, exosomes in semen – which are nanoscale extracellular vesicles naturally secreted by cells – play a crucial role.

Exosomes release immunosuppressive factors to cover sperm in an “invisible cloak”, preventing elimination by the female immune system, while surface proteins could temporarily open tight junctions between vaginal epithelial cells.

Zhang and his team leveraged this natural mechanism to develop their eye drops.

Pigs were chosen because their tissue structure is similar to that of humans and their raw materials are abundant.

In cellular experiments, researchers applied the drug to normal eye cells and retinoblastoma cells.

Even at higher concentrations, normal tissues – corneal, retinal and lens cells – remained highly active, with survival rates exceeding 85 per cent.

The drug was safe for healthy eye tissue.

Against cancer cells, it prove

原文链接: 南华早报