Data associated with 'Horizon: Microfluidic Platform for the Production of Therapeutic Microbubbles and Nanobubbles'

Microbubbles have a multitude of applications including as contrast agents in ultrasound imaging and as therapeutic drug delivery vehicles, with further scope for combining their diagnostic and therapeutic properties (known as theranostics). Microbubbles used clinically are commonly made by mechanical agitation or sonication methods, which offers little control over population size and dispersity. Further, clinically used microbubbles are yet to be used therapeutically and further research is needed to develop these theranostic agents. Here we present our microbubble production instrument “Horizon” which is a robust, portable, and user-friendly instrument, integrating the key components for producing MBs using microfluidic flow-focusing devices. In this paper we present the system design and specifications of Horizon, and the optimised protocols that have so far been used to produce MBs with specific properties. These include microbubbles with tailored size and low dispersity (monodisperse), microbubbles with a diameter ~2 µm which are more disperse but also produced in higher concentration, nanobubbles with diameters 100-600 nm, and therapeutic microbubbles with drug payloads for targeted delivery. Multiplexed chips were able to improve production rates up to sixteen-fold whilst maintaining production stability. This work shows that Horizon is a versatile instrument with potential for mass production and use across many research facilities, which could begin to bridge the gap between therapeutic microbubble research and clinical use