Micelles offer therapeutic advantages including improved drug solubility, enhanced pharmacokinetics, targeted delivery, and reduced systemic toxicity. Consequently, there are many potential applications in cancer therapy, infectious disease treatment, and cardiovascular and neurological disorders. Micelles are formed from amphiphilic molecules that possess hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions, allowing for self-organization in an aqueous environment into structures with a hydrophobic core and hydrophilic shell. Pegylation of the surface can also be used to increase the stability of the micelles.
By encapsulating drugs within micelles, they can be transported more effectively through the body, protecting them from degradation and facilitating their delivery to target tissues or cells. Additionally, micelles can be engineered to have specific surface modifications with targeting ligands or stimuli-responsive components. These enable the selective delivery of drugs to particular sites in the body or controlled release of the encapsulated drugs in response to external stimuli like pH, temperature, or enzymatic activity.
Comprehensive Micelle Characterization with Cryo-TEM Imaging
Cryo-TEM direct imaging & analysis can assess the following characteristics of micelles:
- Morphology: Cryo-TEM can visualize micelle morphology and size range, and can determine the range of variability within a sample
- Stability: Cryo-TEM can produce insights into the stability of micelles under various conditions, such as changes in temperature, pH, or different storage conditions.
Cryo-TEM enables researchers to visualize micelles at a per-particle level, providing crucial visualization into their morphology, particle size distribution and more, which are essential for designing and optimizing micelle-based drug delivery systems and other therapeutics.
Explore Our Services
Explore how our experts can help you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Explore how our experts can help you.
