Advances in Microfluidics for Pharmaceutical Applications

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Pharmaceutical Technology, Manufacturing and Devices".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 4720

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Pharmacy, University College London, London, UK
Interests: nanomedicine; targeted drug delivery; functionalised biomaterials; biomaterials processing; electrospinning/electrospraying; microfluidics; accurate pharmaceutical prediction through advanced in vitro models
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Surrey, Surrey, UK
Interests: lab-on-chip devices; continuous manufacturing; microfluidics; advanced bioprocessing; scale-up strategies; mathematical modelling

Special Issue Information

Access to essential medicine is a challenge in both developed and developing countries. The current global pandemic (COVID-19) has put a spotlight on, among others, the need to develop advanced technologies to reduce both the cost and the time for new drug development. Microfluidic technologies, although they are still limited by their production scalability and cost, are expected to play an important part in the future manufacturing of nanomedicine and administration of therapeutic products and diagnostics. Microfluidics meet the demand of high-quality and meticulously regulated medical products. Currently, researchers are focused on the development of cost-effective, high-impact technologies that will fill the missing link between excellent product development and efficient commercialization of novel therapeutics. This Special Issue aims to introduce the most representative and promising approaches of microfluidic technology on the areas of micro/nanofabrication, novel drug development, cell and drug encapsulation, drug screening, 3D disease models, and organ-on-chips.

We invite colleagues to submit a contribution either in the form of original research article or review.

Dr. Maryam Parhizkar
Dr. Dimitrios Tsaoulidis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmaceutics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Continuous manufacturing
  • Pharmaceutics-on-demand
  • Personalized medicine
  • Microfluidics
  • Nanomedicine
  • Drug development/screening
  • Organ-on-chips

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

17 pages, 3127 KiB  
Article
Engineering 3D Printed Microfluidic Chips for the Fabrication of Nanomedicines
by Aytug Kara, Athina Vassiliadou, Baris Ongoren, William Keeble, Richard Hing, Aikaterini Lalatsa and Dolores R. Serrano
Pharmaceutics 2021, 13(12), 2134; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/pharmaceutics13122134 - 10 Dec 2021
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 4123
Abstract
Currently, there is an unmet need to manufacture nanomedicines in a continuous and controlled manner. Three-dimensional (3D) printed microfluidic chips are an alternative to conventional PDMS chips as they can be easily designed and manufactured to allow for customized designs that are able [...] Read more.
Currently, there is an unmet need to manufacture nanomedicines in a continuous and controlled manner. Three-dimensional (3D) printed microfluidic chips are an alternative to conventional PDMS chips as they can be easily designed and manufactured to allow for customized designs that are able to reproducibly manufacture nanomedicines at an affordable cost. The manufacturing of microfluidic chips using existing 3D printing technologies remains very challenging because of the intricate geometry of the channels. Here, we demonstrate the manufacture and characterization of nifedipine (NFD) polymeric nanoparticles based on Eudragit L-100 using 3D printed microfluidic chips with 1 mm diameter channels produced with two 3D printing techniques that are widely available, stereolithography (SLA) and fuse deposition modeling (FDM). Fabricated polymeric nanoparticles showed good encapsulation efficiencies and particle sizes in the range of 50–100 nm. SLA chips possessed better channel resolution and smoother channel surfaces, leading to smaller particle sizes similar to those obtained by conventional manufacturing methods based on solvent evaporation, while SLA manufactured nanoparticles showed a minimal burst effect in acid media compared to nanoparticles fabricated with FDM chips. Three-dimensional printed microfluidic chips are a novel and easily amenable cost-effective strategy to allow for customization of the design process for continuous manufacture of nanomedicines under controlled conditions, enabling easy scale-up and reducing nanomedicine development times, while maintaining high-quality standards. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Microfluidics for Pharmaceutical Applications)
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Back to TopTop