Engineering Porous and Hollow Microparticles for Enhanced Delivery to the Lung

PI’s: Andres Garcia & Nael McCarty

Lung airway diseases are one of the major causes of infant mortality in the United States. Such diseases result in narrowing of airways, difficulty in breathing, imbalanced mucus homeostasis, and often lung infections. Hence there is an urgent need to deliver therapeutics in a targeted and controlled manner to the diseased site. Dry powder inhalable microparticles which are hollow and highly porous can lead to deep lung deposition and enhanced residence time allowing better treatment efficacy. Here we propose to engineer and thoroughly investigate delivery potential of PLGA polymeric particles via pulmonary route by varying particle properties such as size, charge, porosity and degradation rate. Residence time and delivery efficiency of various biomolecules loaded into PLGA microparticles such as anti-inflammatory proteins and small molecule drugs will be tested. At the end of this investigation, we will have engineered technologies that allow easy to administer, pulmonary delivery of therapeutics to alleviate lung airway diseases in children.

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