(Invited) Formation of Liposomes Containing Pre-Gel Solution and 3D-Printing Applications by Droplet-Shooting Method

Abstract

A liposome is a spherical particle formed by a surfactant bilayer. This particle uses in drug delivery systems, in cosmetics as a model of cell membranes and it often studies in biology and medical science. Furthermore, new materials including polymer-reinforced liposomes have the potential to be applied as mechanical materials for soft equipment in soft robots from the viewpoint of texture expression. On the other hand, there is a problem that the liposome is not suitable as a mechanical material because the liposome is soft and fragile.This study uses liposomes with gel materials such as gelatin and shape memory gel (SMG) to enhance their resistance to mechanical stress. We show the encapsulation procedure gelatin and pre-gel solutions for SMG in liposomes by using the Droplet-Shooting method. This procedure allows the encapsulation of liposomes by gel. Some droplets are shot from the tip of capillary, through the oil-water interface and become liposomes. First, we incorporate gelatin into liposomes, however the gelatin solution has higher viscosity than water. Therefore, this process should be confirmed the effect of the viscosity of gelatin on liposomes generated by the Droplet-Shooting Method. In the case of SMG, we can observe the effect of the UV irradiation on the liposome containing the pre-gel solutions because the irradiation of UV makes the lipid membrane unstable and then breaks liposomes. This study discuss stable formation of polymer-reinforced liposome. We believe that our procedure will contribute to the making novelty materials. Figure 1