Controlled release of drugs with nanostructured capsules in microdroplets

Controlled release of drugs with nanostructured capsules in microdroplets (μdroplets) using a microfluidic device is reported for the first time. Specifically, experiments demonstrated successfully that the drug release can be controlled by dynamically changing the pH of the control solution (water + NaOH) through a microfluidic chip. By observing the fluorescent images of microdroplets, it shows that the drug release inside a microdroplet environment can span from several minutes to several weeks by the control solutions of different pH. Since each microdroplet can serve as a microtiter plate, and hundreds and thousands of microdroplets can be generated rapidly, thus a controlled drug release platform with high throughput for drug screen and discovery could be potentially realized.