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Updated: Aug 23, 2026

Targeted Plasma Membrane Delivery of a Hydrophobic Cargo Encapsulated in a Liquid Crystal Nanoparticle Carrier
Published on: February 8, 2017
A novel one-step drug-loading procedure for water-soluble amphiphilic nanocarriers
Elvire Fournier1, Marie-Hélène Dufresne, Damon C Smith
1Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Montreal, C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada.
Purpose:
The lack of water-solubility hampers the use of many potent pharmaceuticals. Polymeric micelles are self-assembled nanocarriers with versatile properties that can be engineered to solubilize, target, and release hydrophobic drugs in a controlled-release fashion. Unfortunately, their large-scale use is limited by the incorporation methods available, especially when sterile dosage forms are sought.
Methods:
In this manuscript, we describe a straightforward, economical, and innovative drug-loading procedure that consists in dissolving both the drug and an amphiphilic diblock copolymer in a water/tert-butanol mixture that is subsequently freeze-dried.
Results:
We demonstrate that monodisperse 20-60 nm-sized drug-loaded polymeric micelles are produced directly and spontaneously upon rehydration of the freeze-dried cake. To establish the proof-of-principle, two hydrophobic taxane derivatives were solubilized in the micelles, and their partition coefficient was determined.
Conclusions:
This approach is efficient yet astonishingly simple and may be of great interest for scientists working in nanotechnology and pharmaceutical sciences.
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