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Matt's Project Page - RISE Summer 2007 |
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Intern: Matt Lavelle, Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan
Mentor: Guohui Wu
Faculty Supervisor: Joseph Zasadzinski
Department: Chemical Engineering |
VESOSOME SIZE REDUCTION FOR USE AS A DRUG DELIVERY VESICLE
In contemporary methods for chemotherapy one of the largest problems is there
is no way to effectively target the tumor site with the anti-cancer drugs. As a
result these therapeutic drugs destroy both healthy tissue and cancer tissues,
resulting in many of the side effects associated with chemotherapy.
The traditional liposome carriers are single walled transport vehicles. These
vesicles are often not stable during circulation due to associated stresses.
One possible way to strengthen these vesicles is to make them multi-chambered,
known as vesosomes. However, the traditional preparation results in vesosomes
too large to be clinically used. Extrusion is not an option when attempting to
control the exterior vesicles diameter due to the high probability that the
interior vesicles would be ruptured during the process. Alternatively, by
varying the composition of this external wall, it is believed that an
arrangement exist in which these vesicles will spontaneously form at a size
effective for passive targeting while still maintaining a high encapsulation
efficiency of smaller interior vesicles. Experiments have been done with
varying compositions of the lipid DPPE, pluronic F68 and F108, and DPPE-PEG,
all with DPPC as the primary constituent. It has been observed that DPPE-PEG
has the most potential in the formation of the desired size. Research has also
shown that incorporating this PEG-lipid is an effective way of preventing an
immune response to the vesicles, and therefore increasing the circulation time.
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