Design Considerations for Intratracheal Delivery Devices to Achieve Proof-of-Concept Dry Powder Biopharmaceutical...

Area of Science:

• Pulmonary drug delivery
• Vaccine technology
• Biomedical engineering

Background:

• Intratracheal delivery of dry powder vaccines in mice presents significant challenges.
• Device design and actuation parameters critically influence powder flow and in vivo delivery efficacy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of positive pressure dosator design and actuation parameters on dry powder vaccine delivery in mice.
• To optimize device parameters for consistent and effective intratracheal administration of dry powder vaccines.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated chamber-loading dosators with various needle tips (stainless-steel, polypropylene, polytetrafluoroethylene).
• Compared powder loading methods (tamp-loading, chamber-loading, pipette tip-loading).
• Assessed in vivo emitted dose and bioactivity of spray-dried adenovirus in mouse lung tissue.

Main Results:

• A stainless-steel tip showed high initial powder availability (45%) but poor flexibility for mouse intubation.
• A polypropylene pipette tip-loading dosator, with optimized parameters, achieved 50% in vivo emitted dose.
• High bioactivity of the delivered viral-vectored dry powder vaccine was confirmed in mouse lung tissue.

Conclusions:

• Demonstrated successful intratracheal delivery of a viral-vectored dry powder vaccine in mice, achieving comparable bioactivity to liquid formulations.
• The optimized polypropylene dosator design provides a viable platform for murine intratracheal dry powder vaccine delivery.
• This research supports the advancement of inhalable therapeutics and dry powder vaccine development.