Can We Simplify Liposome Manufacturing Using a Complex DoE Approach?

Microfluidic liposome production presents a streamlined pathway for expediting the translation of liposomal formulations from the laboratory setting to clinical applications. Using this production method, resultant liposome characteristics can be tuned through the control of both the formulation parameters (including the lipids and solvents used) and production parameters (including the production speed and mixing ratio). Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between not only total flow rate (TFR), the fraction of the aqueous flow rate over the organic flow rate (flow rate ratio (FRR)), and the lipid concentration, but also the solvent selection, aqueous buffer, and production temperature. To achieve this, we used temperature, applying a design of experiment (DoE) combined with machine learning. This study demonstrated that liposome size and polydispersity were influenced by manipulation of not only the total flow rate and flow rate ratio but also through the lipids, lipid concentration, and solvent selection, such that liposome attributes can be in-process controlled, and all factors should be considered within a manufacturing process as impacting on liposome critical quality attributes.

Chiral Nanoparticle Chains on Inorganic Nanotube Templates.

Fabrication of chiral assemblies of plasmonic nanoparticles is a highly attractive and challenging task, with promising applications in light emission, detection, and sensing. So far, primarily organic chiral templates have been used for chirality inscription. Despite recent progress in using chiral ionic liquids in synthesis, the use of organic templates significantly limits the variety of nanoparticle preparation techniques. Here, we demonstrate the utilization of seemingly achiral inorganic nanotubes as templates for the chiral assembly of nanoparticles. We show that both metallic and dielectric nanoparticles can be attached to scroll-like chiral edges propagating on the surfaces of WS2 nanotubes. Such assembly can be performed at temperatures as high as 550 °C. This large temperature range significantly widens the portfolio of nanoparticle fabrication techniques, allowing us to demonstrate a variety of chiral nanoparticle assemblies, ranging from metals (Au, Ga), semiconductors (Ge), and compound semiconductors (GaAs) to oxides (WO3).