Microfluidic Manufacturing of Polymer Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery: Combining Chemistry and Processing for Polymeric Nanomedicines

Abstract: Our group has pioneered a microfluidic approach to controlled polymer nanoparticle (PNP) formation using two-phase gas-liquid reactors to induce BC self-assembly, in which flow-variable PNPs are produced with morphologies entirely different from off-chip equilibrium structures. We demonstrate the importance of variable high shear in PNP processing, and show that a range of properties, including crystallinity in semicrystalline BCs and light-triggered dissociation in photoresponsive BCs, can be tuned with flow rate. Recently we have developed this approach into a microfluidic platform for drug delivery, showing that microfluidic processing provides unique control over important drug delivery indicators, including loading efficiencies, release rates, and antiproliferative effects in 2D cancer cell models.