Surface acoustic waves nebulisation for pulmonary drug delivery

King, Xi (2019) Surface acoustic waves nebulisation for pulmonary drug delivery. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) devices for droplets manipulation have become widespread in the last twenty years for their ability to work at the microscale, focusing their energy on small targets. SAWs, combined with vesicles-based drug carrier systems such as liposomes, offer the opportunity of efficient drug delivery to the lungs. Liposomes are important drug delivery systems due to their structure, able to retain either a hydrophilic drug within their aqueous core, behind a phospholipid barrier, or a hydrophobic drug associated with the membrane's hydrophobic core. They are capable of releasing the drugs in a controlled manner in conjunction with pH or temperature changes, which is a fundamental feature for the treatment of many diseases such as cancer. SAW devices are ideal platforms for liquid manipulation at the micro-scale, due to their low fabrication cost and low power consumption. The main advantage as a nebuliser, for pulmonary drug delivery, lies with their ability to provide control of the aerosolized droplet size. Another advantage, compared to a commercially available nebuliser, is given by the high frequencies (>1MHz) employed during the nebulisation, which avoids denaturation of the delivered molecules by cavitation. The aim of this PhD is the development of a SAW nebulisation device, capable of delivering drug-loaded liposomes in a targeted manner to the deep lung tissues. The creation of a novel SAW nebulisation platform, where liposomes can be formed in-situ and drugs (or complex molecules) can be loaded in one single step, will avoid drugs side effects and wastage of expensive drugs.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: Surface acoustic waves, pulmonary drug delivery, liposomes, gene therapy.
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Biomedical Engineering
• Supervisor's Name: Cooper, Prof. Jonathan M.
• Date of Award: 2019
• Depositing User: Ms. Xi King
• Unique ID: glathesis:2019-72997
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 29 May 2019 15:40
• Last Modified: 05 Mar 2020 21:57
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.72997
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/72997

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