Value Proposition
· Increased efficacy: This method effectively eliminates PDMS's drug adsorption property while preserving its beneficial characteristics, making this discovery potentially transformative for any drug efficacy and toxicity studies utilizing microfluidic devices.
· Widely applicable: This approach has broader implications for micro physiological systems used in personalized medicine and preclinical testing, where reducing material interference is critical for reliable results.
Unmet Need
· Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a type of silicone polymer, is widely used in microfluidic devices due to its unique properties (biocompatibility, transparency, flexibility, gas permeability, and relatively low cost) which make it superior to alternative materials in terms of ease of use.
· PDMS's hydrophobicity and permeability lead to drug compound absorption, leading to difficulties in using PDMS microfluidic devices for drug screening applications.
· Current methods to prevent adsorption and absorption of small molecules, including the use of oxygen plasma and surface coatings, suffer from low throughput, short lifespans, and limited efficacy.
· Therefore, there is a strong need for more effective polymer coatings to better minimize drug adsorption while preserving the beneficial properties of PDMS.
Technology Description
· Researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed a method to reduce drug absorption using a PDMS-PEG block copolymer additive combined with drug pretreatment
· They found that the combined use of the PDMS-PEG block copolymer with drug pretreatment resulted in an average decrease in drug absorption to 0.36%, representing a 91.6% reduction [1]. This method, involving the addition of the block copolymer and physiological dose pretreatment, enables accurate drug screening and measurement of physiological dose responses
Stage of Development
· Validated in a cardiac micro physiological system.
Publication
Mair et al. PDMS–PEG Block Copolymer and Pretreatment for Arresting Drug Absorption in Microphysiological Devices. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2022;. DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c10669
