Collaborative Research: Unlocking the Potential of Active Lipid Vesicles for Directed Delivery and Controlled Release of Therapeutic Payloads

Directed delivery and controlled release of therapeutic payloads at targeted locations present substantial opportunities for developing the next generation of therapeutic delivery systems. Lipid vesicles offer a versatile platform to accomplish both functionalities in a compatible and integrated manner. These lipid vesicles are closed structures with a membrane that separates the interior of the vesicle from the outside environment, similar to the membrane of a biological cell. This award will leverage the innate encapsulation capacity of lipid vesicles to enclose both therapeutic payloads and self-propelled particles, enabling the vesicles to undergo directed motion to targeted locations and controlled release of the encapsulated payloads. Successful development of this active vesicle-based drug delivery system will benefit future healthcare. The award will also provide outreach to K-12 students, especially students from underrepresented groups, to enhance public understanding of the challenges and potential biomedical applications of the project. The proposed research fuses emerging developments of self-propelled (or active) particles with newly discovered vesicle responses to light-induced reactions to create an integrated therapeutic delivery system based on lipid vesicles. By combining experimental and theoretical investigations, this award aims to accomplish three specific objectives. The first objective is to examine the motion of lipid vesicles driven internally by encapsulated active particles, realizing the directed delivery of lipid vesicles to targeted locations. Secondly, a non-contact mechanism triggered by photoreactions will be developed to induce the rupture of a vesicle and thereby the rapid release of its encapsulated content. Finally, the functionalities achieved in the aforementioned objectives will be combined in an in-vitro platform to demonstrate directed delivery and controlled release of therapeutics at targeted locations for relevant biomedical applications via the use of active vesicles. Successful completion of this project will advance fundamental understanding of the complex dynamics of lipid vesicles in these non-equilibrium processes, identifying key physical parameters and design principles to guide subsequent developments of active vesicle-based therapeutic delivery systems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.