MicroPlant™ Platform
The MicroPlant is Q Chip’s proprietary microfluidic device for the “peptide/protein-friendly” bioencapsulation of biological materials within polymer microspheres.
The bioencapsulation process involves two or more fluid phases, containing a polymer and the biological material. These are pumped continuously into a microfluidic device where they are segmented into discrete droplets with an immiscible liquid phase. Depending on the reactivity of a particular monomer or polymer, the physical size of the desired microspheres and the volume requirement, one or more of the MicroPlant platforms may be chosen for manufacture.
To date, the MicroPlant platform has been proven to be capable of processing a variety of polymer types, from simple homogeneous hydrogel microspheres, through to tightly-controlled 3D polymer-polymer composite spheres (see table below).
|
Polymers |
Applications |
Materials |
|---|---|---|---|
Bioresorbable |
PLGA, PLA, PCL, PGA, HA |
Sustained drug delivery |
Peptides |
Reversible Non-permanent cross-linking. Microsphere degradation controlled through physical/ chemical triggers |
Alginate, chitosan, PEG, gelatin, agarose, polysaccharides, PEO |
Immunoassays Cellular therapies Molecular assays Dermal fillers, Bone scaffolding, Oral drug delivery |
Oligos |
Irreversible Permanent cross-linking |
PVA, PEGDM, acrylamide, HEMA, MAA |
Embolics |
Cells |
The novel MicroPlant platform allows manufacture of encapsulated protein / peptide microspheres with unprecedented control. Microsphere size distributions are typically <2.0% C.V. and can be synthesised in a range of sizes (80-800μm) with high entrapment efficiency and minimal loss of API activity. As the platform has a near-zero dead volume, it is ideally suited to rapid formulation studies and production of small batches for in vitro / vivo investigations.
MicroPlant was designed with validation in mind, and is entirely constructed from FDA approved materials.