Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting

Liposomes, Exosomes, and Virosomes: From Modeling Complex

Membrane Processes to Medical Diagnostics and Drug Delivery

Poster Abstracts

34-POS

Board 17

Formation and Characterization of Hybrid Lipid – Biodegradable Block Copolymer

Vesicles

Sanobar Khan

, Paul A. Beales

, Kathryn Hill

University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom,

AstraZeneca, Macclesfield,

Cheshire, United Kingdom.

Vesicular nanoparticles have proven to be a successful formulation strategy to modify drug

pharmacokinetics and enhance therapeutic index, with numerous examples in current clinical

use. The majority of these successes have been in the form of liposomes, often with a non-

fouling polymer-brush coating. Block copolymer vesicles have also attracted interest for drug

delivery applications due to their broader range of physicochemical properties. Recently, hybrid

vesicles formed from a blend of lipids and block copolymers have shown promise for

synergistically combining the natural biocompatibility of liposomes with the enhanced

mechanical robustness of polymersomes, further expanding the tuneable parameter space for

vesicle engineering. Here we will present an investigation of hybrid vesicles formed from

mixtures of the phospholipid POPC with a range of different biodegradable diblock copolymers.

This will encompass different vesicle formation protocols, comparison to the unitary liposome

and polymersome systems and characterization of vesicle size distributions, hydrophilic

encapsulation efficiency, thermal phase transitions, lateral mixing behaviour and temporal

stability. The aim of this work is to identify promising hybrid vesicle blends for biomedical

applications in drug formulation and delivery.