This technology is a system to efficiently generate uniform cell membrane-coated nanoparticles for use as biomimetic carriers for drug and gene delivery.
Biomimetic materials, made to imitate biological structures, have numerous wide-reaching applications in nanotechnology, drug delivery, and basic research technologies. Current methods to coat nanocarriers with cell membranes involve extrusion and sonication. These methods are tedious and time-consuming, and are further limited by batch-to-batch variabilities, as well as difficulties associated with scale-up. Versatile, reproducible and scalable methods to produce uniformly membrane-lipid coated nanoparticles are necessary for research and clinical translation of these biomimetic vehicles.
This technology is a method enabling rapid and facile membrane-lipid coating of nanoparticles. It takes advantage of electrostatic interactions, which rapidly homogenize charged nanoparticle cores with negatively charged cell membrane fragments, to achieve uniformly coated nanoparticles. This technology can provide a coating thickness ranging from 5-20 nm by varying the flow rate and mass ratios of the different fragment mixes. Furthermore, this method can be broadly applicable to many different bio- and nanomaterials used in the industry today, including silica, polymers, DNA polyplexes, and drug nanocrystals. This technology is a standardized, facile, and robust nanomaterial membrane coating system which has the potential to overcome the current challenges in designing efficient drug delivery systems.
This technology has been validated against bulk-sonication, a commonly applied method for coating nanomaterials.
IR CU20253
Licensing Contact: Joan Martinez