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Target drug delivery is a promising strategy for selective and preferential delivery of therapeutic agents to the target site, thus increasing the concentration of the medication in the pathological parts, improving pharmaceutical activity, reducing low side effects. Microfluidic technologies are becoming one of the key technologies in the field of drug delivery, used for fabrication of drug carriers, direct drug delivery systems, high-throughput screening, and formulation and immobilization of drugs. Creative Biolabs has organized a staff of excellent experts who have accumulated rich experience in microfluidic-based drug delivery research. We support a series of top-quality research services of microfluidic-based drug delivery.

Advantages of Microfluidic-based Drug Delivery

Microfluidic technologies have attracted considerable attention in the area of drug delivery science. Compared to conventional delivery methods such as oral, sublingual, rectal, intravenous, subcutaneous, and intramuscular drug deliveries, microfluidic-based drug delivery system offers many advantages such as precise dosage, ideal delivery, target-precise delivery, sustainable and controlled release, multiple dosing, and slight side effects. In addition to these, microfluidics has lower costs for fabrication compared to other traditional fabricated devices and can be fabricated with different miniature devices. Importantly, microfluidic devices allow miniaturized usage of sample and reagent, accurate control of the volume of fluid, and accurate temperature control and rapid temperature exchange. These features enable microfluidic devices to become valuable tools for studying drug delivery systems.

Microfluidics in Drug Delivery Research

• Production of Drug Delivery Carriers

Most studies have reported microfluidics systems can be applied for screening and production of the particles or polymers with precise forms or chemistries for delivery of drugs. A strategy of using the capillary instability-driven breakup of a liquid jet formed by two immiscible fluids was reported to produce the monodispersed droplets with controlled morphologies in a size range from 20 to 200 µm. Xu et al. (2009) employed a microfluidic device to screen and synthesize monodisperse particles in a defined size range from 10µm to 50 µm. Interestingly, microfluidic devices can also be used for studying the interactions between the microstructures and profile of the drug release. Leveraging microfluidic devices, scientists synthesized the monodisperse poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) microspheres at the sizes of the varied diameters and revealed the differences in the expansion rates with small and large poly microspheres had homogeneous and heterogeneous drug release characteristics, respectively.

Fig. 2 Microfluidic platforms for generation of self-assembled drug and gene carriers. ^1,3

• Immobilization of Drugs

Microfluidic systems can be used to immobilize or load drugs into a particle carrier. Madhuvanthi et al. (2016) leveraged a microfluidic flow-focusing device to encapsulate recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) into echogenic liposomes (ELIP). In this study, the encapsulation rate of the drug into the liposomes was 69% and the average size of the particles produced was 5 µm. Hui et al. (2012) also developed a simple and economical microfluidic-based method for encapsulation of two anticancer drugs. In this study, the fluidic nanoprecipitation system and PLGA polymer as well as different solubilities, such as paclitaxel (hydrophobic) and doxorubicin hydrochloride (hydrophilic) were used to encapsulate hydrophobic drugs and simultaneously emulsify hydrophilic drugs.

• Drug Delivery

A good example of drug delivery via microfluidics is the microneedles system. A study has reported microneedles devices exhibited a better and deeper penetration in skin compared to topical formulations. A in vitro study showed the microneedles possessed a higher penetration than commercial tetanus toxoid vaccines, leading to a higher immunoglobulin G2 titer.

Services at Creative Biolabs

Creative Biolabs is a world-leading service provider who is devoted to offering the best microfluidic technology services with high quality and low cost. We are committed to providing end-to-end microfluidic-based drug delivery solutions including program design, implementation, and output. We support not only the custom design and development of a microfluidic-based drug delivery system but microfluidic-based preclinical tests such as dosage development and cytotoxicity studies. If you are interested in our services, please contact us to discuss your project.

Published Data

The following are results highlighted in articles related to the advancement of microfluidic technology for drug delivery:

1. Integrated microfluidic system for investigating drug effects on early C. Elegans embryonic development

Fig. 3 Microfluidic embryo collection and drug delivery chip.^2,3

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is widely used as a model organism because of its quick life cycle, ease of genetic manipulation, and substantial research community. Scientists have used C. elegans to model a variety of human diseases. Early embryos are very useful for analyzing basic cellular processes, but research on early embryos is relatively limited due to the difficulty of embryo collection and the cumbersome application of drugs. Li Dong et al. introduced a microfluidic device that can quickly and efficiently extract early developmental embryos from pregnant adults and fix them in a microtrap array for imaging analysis.^2,3 Microfluidic devices can also accurately handle and transport small amounts of liquids to achieve controlled and versatile drug applications.

References

1. Damiati, Kompella, et al. " Microfluidic Devices for Drug Delivery Systems and Drug Screening." Genes. 9.2 (2018): 103.
2. Dong, Li, et al. "Integrated microfluidic device for drug studies of early C. elegans embryogenesis." Advanced Science 5.5 (2018): 1700751.
3. Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.