Polymersomes are vesicles which consist of compartments surrounded by membrane walls that are composed of lamellae of block copolymers. They are important for numerous applications in encapsulation and delivery of active ingredients such as food additives, drugs, fragrances, and enzymes. Polymersomes are typically prepared by precipitating block copolymers from their solvents through addition o...

The present study was designed to investigate whether poly-ion complex hollow vesicles (polymersomes), based on chemically modified chitosan, are appropriate for passive tumour targeting in the context of their application as drug carriers. The experiments were performed on colon cancer-grafted mice. The mice were subjected to anaesthesia and injected intravenously with water-soluble nanopartic...

BACKGROUND Hollow vesicles formed from block copolymers, so-called polymersomes, have been extensively studied in the last decade for their various applications in drug delivery, in diagnostics and as nanoreactors. The immobilization of proteins on the polymersomes' surface can aid in cell targeting, lead to functional biosensors or add an additional reaction space for multistep syntheses. In a...

Polymersomes are at the leading edge of biomedical and nanoparticle research. In order to get closer insights into their mechanical properties, the bilayer forming them needs to be studied thoroughly. Here, we report on the bilayer formation, swelling behaviour, rigidity and fluidity of our membranes derived from pH sensitive and photo-cross-linkable polymersomes.

Vesicles made completely from diblock copolymers-polymersomes-can be stably prepared by a wide range of techniques common to liposomes. Processes such as film rehydration, sonication, and extrusion can generate many-micron giants as well as monodisperse, approximately 100 nm vesicles of PEO-PEE (polyethyleneoxide-polyethylethylene) or PEO-PBD (polyethyleneoxide-polybutadiene). These thick-walle...

We report a parallelized capillary microfluidic device for enhanced production rate of monodisperse polymersomes. This device consists of four independent capillary microfluidic devices, operated in parallel; each device produces monodisperse water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) doubleemulsion drops through a single-step emulsification. During generation of the double-emulsion drops, the innermost wat...

We present an approach to fabricate capsules consisting of a composite layer of particles and block copolymers . The capsules are fabricated by directed assembly of block copolymers at the interfaces of a double emulsion template and electrostatic adsorption of particles onto the copolymers. The double emulsion drops are prepared using capillary-based microfluidics. The solvent phase of the dou...

We investigate the formation of polymer vesicles, or polymersomes, of polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) diblock copolymers using double emulsion droplets of controlled architecture as templates. To engineer the structure of the polymersomes, it is important to consider the concentration of diblock copolymer in the middle phase of the double emulsion. We describe how the presence of excess ...