title: Low pressure mediated enhancement of nanoparticle and macromolecule loading into porous silicon structures.
abstract: Ensuring drug loading efficiency and consistency is one of the most critical stages in engineering drug delivery vectors based on porous materials. Here we propose a technique to significantly enhance the efficiency of loading by employing simple and widely available methods: applying low pressure with and without centrifugation. Our results point toward the advantages the proposed method over the passive loading, especially where the size difference of loaded materials and the pore size of the porous silicon particles is smaller, an increase up to 20-fold can be observed. The technique described in the study can be used for efficient and reproducible loading of porous materials with therapeutic molecules, nanoparticles and contrast imaging agents for biomedical application.
authors.affiliation: Houston Methodist Research Institute, 6670 Bertner Avenue, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Fransisca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Leonard
authors.affiliation: Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, The He-brew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Margulis-Goshen
authors.affiliation: Houston Methodist Research Institute, 6670 Bertner Avenue, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Xuewu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Houston Methodist Research Institute, 6670 Bertner Avenue, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Srimeenakshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Srinivasan
authors.affiliation: Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, The He-brew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
authors.forename: Shlomo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Magdassi
authors.affiliation: Houston Methodist Research Institute, 6670 Bertner Avenue, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Biana
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Godin