Drug Delivery
Automating complex drug testing and delivery systems
Introduction
With changing medicines, increasingly complex therapeutic proteins and the advent of personalized therapies, more advanced ways to deliver these drugs are needed. This includes, for example, the controlled release of a drug at the right time and place. Many new therapeutic drugs or bioactive molecules hold tremendous potential as therapies; however, they often face solubility issues, instabilities during administration, lack bioavailability or can have unwanted off-target effects.
Nano- and micro-encapsulation of drugs is a growing field that offers solutions to many of the problems associated with drug delivery and is also showing potential for specific targeting of therapeutics, through surface modification techniques that promote binding to specific sites within the body. Additionally, sustained, triggered and extended release drug-delivery systems have been developed. At CELLINK, we provide a set of innovative tools that help you accelerate the development and testing of the next-generation drug-delivery systems.
Automating Screening of Bioactives
The I.DOT liquid-handling technology is a new automated non-contact liquid dispenser capable of dispensing nano-micro liter volumes with unprecedented speed and accuracy. The system can be used to screen drugs with human cells, bioprinted tissues or can even be used in the high-throughput chemical synthesis with the goal of developing targeted therapeutics. The system can dispense pure drugs and encapsulated drugs in linear and logarithmic patterns and in various solvents, offering large flexibility for high-throughput testing. The speed and accuracy of the I.DOT will help you save time and discover which agent or concentration is optimal for your application.
Hydrogel Drug-Delivery Systems
Bioprinters can do more than print with cells, they can also be used for fabricating hydrogel drug encapsulation and extended-release technologies. The BIO X bioprinter offers a variety of printheads that are compatible with different hydrogels. Drugs and bioactives can be mixed within the hydrogels and printed in patterns such as large patches or micrometer-sized beads.
Light based bioprinters, such as the Lumen X and Holograph X offer even more precise control during fabrication; uniform micro-array particle patterns can be cured containing drugs with specific geometries such as rods, discs or spheres, as well as larger patches. In addition, our light-based bioprinters can be used to fabricate microfluidic organ-on-a-chip models, which in turn can be used to study perfusion of targeted drugs and particles in more physiologically relevant human models.
Light based bioprinters, such as the Lumen X and Holograph X offer even more precise control during fabrication, where uniform micro-array particle patterns can be cured containing drugs with specific geometries such as rods, discs, or spheres, as well as larger patches. In addition, our bioprinters can be used to fabricate microfluidic organ-on-a-chip models, which in turn can be used to study perfusion of targeted drugs and particles in more physiologically relevant human models.
Monitoring Drug-Delivery Activity in Real-Time
Advances in automated live-cell imaging systems are paving the way for real-time monitoring of drug delivery. The CELLCYTE X is a new live-cell imaging microscope that uses machine-learning algorithms to capture key data and cellular events in an automated manner. Equipped with three fluorescent channels and modular objective magnifications, the unit streamlines your research so that you can focus on the results. The device is compact and readily fits in an incubator for time-lapse cell imaging. The system significantly increases walk-away time and helps you automate cellular assays.
