Microrheology techniques for pharmaceutical research

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Drugs need to be formulated into medicines before they can be given to patients in a useful form. Injections are an important group of formulations and their viscoelasticity, that is, the ease in which the fluid can be deformed as it passes through the syringe, is an important consideration. However, bulk testing of the viscoelastic behaviour of injectables is often not feasible since they are available only in limited amounts. Here we will investigate new techniques in the field of microrheology, which have been demonstrated to measure the viscoelasticity of very small volumes of sample. The volumes that can be measured are so small that the technique can be applied to the measurement of the viscoelasticity of sub-cellular compartments such as the nucleus and mitochondria. Therefore, in addition to addressing the key issue of pharmaceutical formulation the work will also attempt to measure changes in the viscoelastic environment of a drug as it is internalised into a cell via a process known as endocytosis.