Traditional anticancer chemotherapy often displays toxic side effects, poor bioavailability, and a low therapeutic index. Targeting and controlled release of a chemotherapeutic agent can increase drug bioavailability, mitigate undesirable side effects, and increase the therapeutic index. Here we report a polymersome-based system to deliver gemcitabine to Panc-1 cells in vitro. The polymersomes ...

Vesicles prepared in water from a series of diblock copolymers “polymersomes” are physically characterized and compared to lipid vesicles. With increasing molecular weight M̄n, the hydrophobic core thickness d for the self-assembled bilayers of poly(ethylene oxide)-polybutadiene (PEO-PBD) increases up to ≃20 nm considerably greater than any previously studied lipid system. The mechanical respons...

Quantum dots (QDs) are highly fluorescent and stable probes for cellular and molecular imaging. However, poor intracellular delivery, stability, and toxicity of QDs in biological compartments hamper their use in cellular imaging. To overcome these limitations, we developed a simple and effective method to load QDs into polymersomes (Ps) made of poly(dimethylsiloxane)-poly(2-methyloxazoline) (PD...

Despite numerous studies on utilizing polymeric vesicles as nanocapsules, fabrication of tunable molecular pathways on transportable vesicle walls remains challenging. Traditional methods for building penetrated channels on vesicular membrane surface often involve regulating the solvent polarity or photo-cross-linking. Herein, we developed a neat, green approach of stimulation by using CO2 gas ...

Polymersome nanoparticles (PMs) are attractive candidates for spatio-temporal controlled delivery of therapeutic agents. Although many studies have addressed cellular uptake of solid nanoparticles, there is very little data available on intracellular release of molecules encapsulated in membranous carriers, such as polymersomes. Here, we addressed this by developing a quantitative assay based o...

Polymer vesicles, or polymersomes, are promising candidates for applications in drug delivery and tissue imaging. While a vast variety of polymers have been explored for their ability to assemble into polymersomes, relatively little research on the functionalization of these polymers has been reported. We present here a novel route for the synthesis of poly(caprolactone)-b-poly(ethylene glycol)...

Self-assembled nanoparticles conjugated with various imaging contrast agents have been used for the detection and imaging of pathologic tissues. Inadvertently, these nanoparticles undergo fast, dilution-induced disintegration in circulation and quickly lose their capability to associate with and image the site of interest. To resolve this challenge, we hypothesize that decreasing the bilayer pe...