Nano-medicines such as chemotherapy formulations can be developed by the synthesis, control and modification of structures at the nanoscale. A pre-requisite for predicting overall performance and medical effect is accurate measurement of the surface composition and shell thickness of constituent particles. However, developing formulations has been complicated by slow or expensive measurement procedures.

More at: https://www.euramet.org/casestudies/casestudiesdetails/news/practical-nanoparticle-shell-thickness-measurement

Impact

Oxford HighQ, a University of Oxford spin-out, developed ‘optical micro-cavity analysis’ (OMCA), a platform designed to amplify measurement signals from optical sensing technologies.

Targeting markets that might benefit from characterising nanoparticles in fluids, the company’s Nano-α benchtop instrument adopted OMCA to characterise engineered nanoparticles sized from about 50 nm to 400 nm in small sample volumes by measuring refractive index.

Aware of the advances made in the EMPIR project, Oxford HighQ partnered with National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in an Innovate UK project that validated the capability of OMCA for measuring composition and shell thickness of model core-shell nanoparticles — Benchmarking of a novel multiparameter sensor for nanomedicines.

Promotion of this demonstration of the value of the Nano-α for nanomedicine developers generated qualified and engaged enquiries, deepened the company’s understanding of the market, and built connections with the liposome research community, that accelerated product development ahead of product launch.

Upgraded nanoparticle shell property measurement methods supported the introduction of novel instrumentation and will contribute to the development of nanoparticle applications.

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