New paper in Adv. Mater. Interfaces

Post date: Oct 13, 2017 1:30:59 PM

Kwanghwi Je, Ju Hyeon Kim, Tae Soup Shim, Minhee Ku, Jaemoon Yang, and Shin-Hyun Kim, "Lithographically-Designed Conical Microcarriers for Programed Release of Multiple Actives", Advanced Materials Interfaces, Accepted for publication (2017). (Corresponding author)

The programmed release of multiple ingredients is important in the therapeutics and pharmaceutical fields. A variety of core–shell microcarriers have been designed to fulfill the release function; however, encapsulating multiple actives in their own compartments and releasing them in a programmed manner remains a challenge due to restrictions on the material sets that may be used to form the compartments. In this work, we report the development of lithographically featured core–shell microcarriers composed of double cones and a cap that encapsulate and release various combinations of multi-actives in a pre-defined fashion. Active-free caps were first prepared on a photomask using conventional photolithography. Onto each cap were formed, sequentially, an active-loaded small cone and large cone in two steps of reaction diffusion-mediated photolithography (RDP). The release kinetics of the actives stored in the inner and outer cones were controlled by tailoring the cross-linking density of the photocured polymers that composed each compartment. The cap prevented direct diffusion from the inner cone to the surrounding. The RDP-based lithographic means for creating core–shell microcarriers provides new opportunities for delivering synergistic combinations of drugs in pharmacotherapy.