Introduction Polymeric porous microspheres are promising for drug delivery and cancer therapeutics.
Polymeric material benefits: • Biocompatibility • Degradability • Excellent thermal and mechanical properties • Eliminated by kidney filtration and bioassimilation • Can be made from from renewable resources1,2
Porous Microspheres: • Less polymer to be eliminated from the body • Can be filled with cells and therapeutics • Control drug delivery • Cell internalization and phagocytosis3,4
2 to 250µm
4nm to 25µm <100nm
6 to 200nm
• Introduction
Results and Discussion
Stirrer time
Rate of droplets
Aqueous phase concentration
pH
Increased energy input to system
• Introduction
66.92+ 19.2µm 2.02 + 1.04µm
29.52+ 1.94µm 1.63 + 0.05µm
16.64+ 6.87µm 1.40 + 0.20µm
0.20 + 0.025µm
44.50+ 23.44µm 1.63 + 0.05µm
55.35+ 21.1µm 3.84 + 1.02µm
Conclusions • The sphericity , porosity, surface morphology and size of
spheres can be controlled by varying the parameters • Hydrolysis can be applied post production to enable
interconnected and wide-open porous structures • These microspheres have a variety of applications, including –
drug carriers, enzyme transplantation, gene therapy and as contrast agents in diagnostics.
Delivery site and target size 5,6,7:
Porous Polymer Microspheres:
Controlling shape, size and porosity
for controlled drug delivery
Ana Letícia Braz1, Derek Irvine and Ifty Ahmed1 1Advanced Materials Research Group, Healthcare Technologies, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.; Tel: +44 (0) 115 7484675
E-mail: [email protected] and [email protected]
• Introduction
References 1. Almeida S A et al., J.Poly Test., 31, 267-275, 2012. 2. Vert M et al., Euro. Poly. J., 68, 516-525, 2015. 3. Leong K W et al., J.Contro.Rel., 53, 183-193, 1998. 4. Kim M R et al., Macrom. J., 34, 406-410, 2013. 5. Bertrand N et al., J.Contro.Rel.,161, 152-163, 2012. 6. Broichsitter M B et al., J.Contro.Rel., 161, 214-224, 2012. 7. Yu Y et al., Biom.J., 35, 3467-3479, 2014.
• Introduction Aim and Objectives
In this work emulsion based techniques were used with varying surfactant concentration (polyvinyl alcohol) and stirring conditions to produce porous microspheres with varying porosity ranges.
Methodology
• Introduction Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the University of Nottingham Faculty of Engineering Dean of Engineering Scholarship and Capes for International Excellence in Research for funding this project.
50 to 100nm
Organic solvents (dichloromethane solvent for PLA) and non-solvent cyclohexane are mixed with water in presence of surfactant (PVA) and stirred to create an emulsion
Methodology
