Microfluidic fabrication of fatty alcohol-based microparticles for NIR light-triggered drug release

The development of photo-triggered drug delivery system is promising for the temporal and spatial control of drug release. However, most of the progress in photothermal drug delivery has been focused on nanosized particles which can be removed from the injected sites by exocytosis. In this study, injectable and implantable near-infrared (NIR) light-responsive microparticles are fabricated using droplet-based microfluidics. The particles are composed of 1-tetradecanol, as a class of non-toxic phase change material, and IR780, as a NIR-absorbing photothermal agent. Doxorubicin, an anticancer drug, is encapsulated in the particles to obtain NIR light-responsive anticancer drug carriers. The photothermal response of IR780 to NIR irradiation facilitates the release of the encapsulated drug through the melting of 1-tetradecanol and demonstrates the NIR light-responsive drug release. This study shows that IR780-encapsulated 1-tetradecanol microparticles fabricated by droplet-based microfluidics have great potential as injectable and implantable drug carriers featuring NIR light-sensitive drug release.