Novel polyelectrolyte nanoparticle formulation method

JHU Ref #: C13536

Value Proposition

·      Controllable and scalable nanoparticle preparation with narrow and uniform size distribution

·      Production of condensed and compact polyelectrolyte nanoparticles with improved polymer chain entanglement

·      Allows for efficient protein encapsulation while retaining their intrinsic physiochemical properties

·      Nanoparticles exhibit higher cell transfection efficiency compared to bulk preparation methods

Unmet Need

·      Polyelectrolyte nanoparticles have been widely used for various therapeutic delivery applications, from low molecular weight drugs to peptides and proteins. They are prepared by mixing oppositely charged polymers in aqueous media and are heterogeneous in terms of size and surface charge. However, current production methods rely on bulk mixing techniques that are difficult to scale up and suffer from high batch-to-batch variation and there does not exist a method for continuous production of nanoparticles. Therefore, there is a strong need for a method of mass producing these nanoparticles consistently to increase the accessibility of these drug therapies.

Technology Overview

·      Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a scalable method of producing discrete polyelectrolyte nanoparticles with uniform shape and size distribution. Using a confined impinging jet device, the method involves the self-assembly of oppositely charged polyelectrolyte biomacromolecules, such as PEI/DNA, under rapid and homogeneous mixing conditions, resulting in condensed and compact nanoparticles while retaining their intrinsic physiochemical properties. The inventors have demonstrated that these nanoparticles have improved particle size and shape distributions and exhibit higher cell transfection efficiency when compared to a bulk preparation method.

Stage of Development

·      Proof of concept.

Data Availability

·      Data available at publication below.

Publication

https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201601425