Description:
Princeton Docket # 15-3172-1
Researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University have developed a method to produce large unilamellar lipid vesicles with controlled size.
Fusion between suspended lipid vesicles is difficult to achieve without membrane proteins or ions, because the vesicles have extremely low equilibrium membrane tension and high poration energy. Nonetheless, vesicle fusion in the absence of mediators can also be achieved by mechanical forcing that is strong enough to induce membrane fusion. The current methods for producing large vesicles, such as the electroformation method, are time consuming, usually taking a few hours.
This innovation describes a novel method that employs a strong fluid shear stress to achieve vesicle fusion. It is accomplished by autonomously generating a vortex in the presence of a strong flow in a branched channel, allowing lipid vesicles to be captured. The vortex is strong enough to merge captured small vesicles into one large vesicle. This fusion process occurs in less than a second, enabling the rapid production of large lipid vesicles.
It has been shown that a large vesicle with size of up to ten microns can be achieved by fusion of nanoscale vesicles. This technique has the potential to be utilized as a fast and simple way to produce giant unilamellar vesicles, and to serve as a platform for visualizing vesicle interactions and fusions in the presence of shear. It also has medical applications, such as in the formation of lipid-encapsulated drugs. It may be useful in chemical separation or waste stream recovery and segregation.
Applications
• Large lipid vesicles production
• Lipid-encapsulated drugs with controlled size
• Study of vesicle interactions and fusions in the presence of shear
Advantages
• Rapid
• Simple
• Controlled vesicle size
• No complex devices required other than flow
The Inventors
Howard A. Stone, Donald R. Dixon and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Department Chair
Howard Stone is the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. His research has been concerned with a variety of fundamental problems in fluid motions dominated by viscosity, so-called low Reynolds number flows, and has frequently featured a combination of theory, computer simulation and modeling, and experiments to provide a quantitative understanding of the flow phenomenon under investigation. Prof. Stone is the recipient of the most prestigious fluid mechanics prize, the Batchelor Prize 2008, for the best research in fluid mechanics in the last ten years. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.
Sangwoo Shin, PhD, received his BS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Yonsei University, Korea in 2005 and 2012, respectively. His study involving heat and mass transfer in micro/nanoscale materials and devices was awarded with the Distinguished Thesis Award from Yonsei University in 2012. In 2013, he joined Princeton University as a postdoctoral researcher to work on dynamics and transport in small-scale systems with Prof. Howard A. Stone.
Jesse T. Ault completed my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Purdue University where my research involved self-propelled nanomotors, piston micromirrors, and novel hydrogen peroxide/aluminum based rocket propellants. At Princeton my research emphasizes the use of numerical simulations in solving complex fluids problems, especially the behavior of fluids in geometries with 3D, swirling flows. I have recently quantified an unexpected particle trapping mechanism in branching junctions over a range of geometries and developed an analytical expression for how fluids behave in the entrance and exits of curved pipes. I recently received the Mary and Randall Hack '69 Graduate Award for water-related research for a project that attempts to improve the efficiency of solar stills by incorporating high-surface-area super-hydrophilic aluminum meshes.
Intellectual Property & Development Status
Patent protection is pending.
Princeton is currently seeking commercial partners for the further development and commercialization of this opportunity.
Contact:
Michael R. Tyerech
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing
• (609) 258-6762• tyerech@princeton.edu
Xin (Shane) Peng
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing
• (609) 258-5579• xinp@princeton.edu