Abstract

Screening and Scale-Up Lipid Nanoparticles Using a High-Throughput Microfluidic System

Nan Zhang, Associate Professor, University College Dublin

Drug delivery systems in forms of nanoparticles have a broad spectrum of applications in area of gene therapy, cell therapy, and vaccine development. Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) or liposomes that consist of a lipid bilayer and have a hollow structure are the most widely used drug carriers for nanomedicines. It is possible to encapsulate a variety of low molecular compounds (e.g., drugs, peptides, antibody, plasmid-DNA, mRNA, siRNA etc.) in the lipid bilayer membrane or to encapsulate them into the hollow structure. However, significant concerns remain on efficacy, safety, consistency, scale-up of manufacturing and stability when translating LNPs from formulation into clinical application. LNPs’ properties, e.g., size, size distribution, charge, drug encapsulation, transfection efficiency etc., can significantly affect the bio-distribution and pharmacokinetics of the drug to be delivered. In order to obtain LNPs with expected characteristics, microfluidics that exploit fluidic control to synthesize LNPs have grown in acceptability and applications in laboratory and larger scales due to offering a reproducible and robust manufacturing through the precise control of flowing conditions. In the present talk, the author will share the newly developed high throughput microfluidic system for laboratory screening and formulation of nanoparticles based on a novel aerofoil microfluidic mixing system. The formulation based on low, medium and high flow rates will be demonstrated. The automation of the system will be introduced for industrial scale formulation. The device has demonstrate the strong potential for low volume screening, medium volume scale up and high volume GMP production for nanoparticle development.