Nanoscale droplets produced by UCLA could improve drug delivery

Scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have succeeded in making unique nanoscale droplets that are much smaller than a human cell and can potentially be used to deliver pharmaceuticals.

The researchers at UCLA have made nanoemulsions containing billions of double nanodroplets smaller than 100 nanometers the world's smallest double emulsions.

"What we found that was unexpected was within each oil droplet there was also a water droplet a double emulsion," said Timothy Deming, professor and chair of the UCLA Department of Bioengineering and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center.

"This gives us a new tool, a new material, for drug delivery," said Thomas G. Mason, a UCLA associate professor of chemistry and physics who has been leading research on nanoemulsions since he joined UCLA five years ago.

Deming added: "We have demonstrated we can make these emulsions that are stable in this size range, which no one has ever been able to do before. These double nanoemulsions are generally hard to form and very unstable, but ours are very stable."

"If we have water-soluble drugs, we can load them inside," Deming said. "If we have water-insoluble drugs, we can load them inside as well. We can deliver them simultaneously."

The emulsion means drug developers can effectively combine both types of drug molecules in the same delivery package. This approach could be used for a combination therapy - delivering two drugs simultaneously at a fixed ratio into the same location.

In future research, Deming and Mason aim to make sure the droplets can harmlessly enter cells and release their cargo.

NanoPacific Holdings Inc. has licensed this nanodroplet technology from UCLA to develop and commercialize the technology in a variety of applications.