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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 35: Membranes and vesicles II (joint BP/CPP)

BP 35.7: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 18. März 2015, 17:00–17:15, H 1028

Vesicles-on-a-chip: versatile fabrication of liposomes and polymersomes in microfluidic environment — •Julien Petit, Ingmar Polenz, Stephan Herminghaus, and Oliver Bäumchen — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS), 37077 Göttingen, Germany

Synthetic biology recently appeared as an emerging field of research for mimicking and understanding natural systems from a fundamental point of view. This "bottom-up" approach involves the investigation of the biological and physical properties and mechanisms of functional biological systems (from basic modules/parts of living cells to more complicated systems). One key challenge relies on the fabrication of compartments such as vesicles, that can be viewed as model membranes, as demonstrated by numerous studies during the past decades. Despite this fact, reliable methods for high-throughput production of vesicles (liposomes as well as polymersomes) in an easy and well-controlled manner are still in progress. In this scope, we propose a versatile method for producing monodisperse vesicles in a microfluidic environment from double-emulsions templates. The combination of the microfluidic chip design and the original channel treatment as well as the new fluid systems employed in the present study allows the production and manipulation of liposomes and polymersomes on demand. This new technique opens a playground for fundamental studies, e.g. on the collective behavior of vesicle clusters and their self-organization, as well as applications such as protein or drug encapsulation and mechanisms of targeted delivery.