Formulation of inverse Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery via an Emulsion Route

Abstract

Nanoparticles loaded with biologically derived drugs (biologics) such as proteins play an increasingly important role in the delivery of therapeutics because biologics are highly valued for their target specificity, yet the same characteristics that make that possible is also what makes biologics vulnerable to degradation in the body. In this work, the development of a new emulsion process that can encapsulate inverse nanoparticles made via the inverse Flash Nanoprecipitation (iFNP) technique, a homopolymer, and a di-block copolymer in the oil droplets dispersed in the external aqueous phase is studied. This is done first by investigating the effect of emulsion processing parameters—shear rate, time being sheared, surfactant type, surfactant concentration—on the formation of oil droplets. It was observed that as emulsions are exposed to higher homogenization times and speeds, the oil droplets decrease in size but less so with each increment. The iFNP process itself is then studied by investigating how zein protein and Eudragit L100-55, both stabilizing polymers, affect nanoparticle formation. It was observed that zein interactions with pure chloroform is destabilizing and that adding more DMSO can help stabilize the nanoparticles over time. Finally, combining the two processes of emulsion and iFNP in a single blue dextran plus L100-55 system to study the resultant particle sizes show that homogenization time and speed trends similar to that from the previous simple emulsions processing occur.