Going with the flow
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a new way to produce nanoparticles that can deliver drugs for cancer and other diseases. The new production system offers greater control over the size and composition of the particles, allowing large quantities of homogenous particles to be rapidly produced. The particles are formed from a commonly used biodegradable polymer that can carry a large number of drug molecules and release them in a controlled fashion while evading the body’s immune system.In the new production system, a stream of the polymer flows through a microfluidic channel that focuses it three-dimensionally, isolating it from the channel walls and allowing spherical nanoparticles to form when the polymer contacts water side streams. In traditional two-dimensional systems, polymers often clump along the top and bottom walls, clogging the device. The new system uses streams of an organic solvent called acetonitrile to keep the polymers...