Modern day medicine is highly reliant on the development of medical tools. Microbubbles, gaseous colloidal particles with diameters of less than 10 um, are highly versatile tools that can be used for a number of medical applications. They serve as echo contrast agents for ultrasound imaging, as drug delivery vehicles for targeted therapy, and as gas carriers for blood oxygenation. Designing and engineering non-immunogenic, ultrasound-triggered microbubbles for targeting is critical to expand the utility and scope of these applications. This technology presents a fabrication technique for creating microbubbles to fit this myriad applications.
This technology presents a new way of fabricating a buried-ligand architecture (BLA) in which the microbubble surface is coated with a bimodal poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) brush following microbubble fabrication, purification and size selection. Further modification, via streptavidin-induced surface structure formation, leads to excess surface area that may be useful in enhancing ligand-receptor mediated adhesion for targeting applications. In addition, this technology demonstrates the feasibility of post-labeling for small molecule ligands to BLA microbubbles to generate stealth targeted ultrasound contrast agents. This technology has been tested in vivo in rodents and ex vivo using human cells from healthy volunteers.
Mark Borden, Ph.D.
Patent Pending (US 20120175305)
Tech Ventures Reference: IR M10-094