(334ba) Fabrication of Multi-Compartment Micro-Capsules for Drug Delivery of Multiple Drugs

My research interests include the following: Micro-capsules and microfluidics, modeling and simulation, pharmaceutical drug process development and manufacturing, drug micro-encapsulation and drug delivery, data science and automation.

Abstract:

In recent years, various studies have investigated the flow dynamics of a single capsule in straight microfluidic channels such as cylindrical, square and rectangular channels, constrictions and expansions. These studies have provided a better understanding for capsules utilized in numerous engineering and biomedical applications including fabrication of single and multi-compartment micro-capsules with desirable properties, targeted drug delivery and of course its similarity to blood flow in vascular capillaries.

In the present work, our interest is concentrated on fabrication of multi-compartment micro-capsules based on interactions of single capsules. In our computational investigation, we consider spherical capsules made of a strain-hardening membrane with comparable shearing and area-dilation resistance, while we study a wide range of capsule sizes and flow rates. Under these conditions, we have identified several merging formation patterns which depend on the single capsule size. The conditions for capsules separation and the effects of lubrication physics will also be presented. Our work provides useful physical insight on the possible fabrication of multi-compartment micro-capsules via further cross-linking for drug delivery of multiple drugs as well as on erythrocytes aggregation in the micro-circulation.