Structural characterization of cerasomes

The idea is to characterize cerasomes particles. Such objects are 200 nm micelles with a mono- or bilayer of silanol lipids (<5 nm) suspended in water. Their surface is partly rigid thanks to silanol crosslinking, still those are "soft glass bubbles" and can be used for a variety of application in chemistry or biology, mainly for drug delivery. We would be interested by checking the bi- or mono- layer thickness of those micelles, indeed batch and microfluidic reactors were used for the synthesis of cerasomes and they seem to have different rigidity and therefore different layer thickness. Only SAXS would allow to characterize such dimension.

本研究旨在表征硅烷脂质体（cerasomes）颗粒。该类颗粒为尺寸200纳米的胶束，由厚度小于5纳米的硅烷醇脂质单层或双层构成，悬浮于水中。其表面因硅烷醇交联作用呈现部分刚性，尽管如此，它们仍属于“软玻璃微泡”，可应用于化学与生物学领域的多种场景，其中尤以药物递送为核心用途。我们的研究目标为表征这类胶束的单层或双层厚度：研究中分别采用间歇式反应器与微流控反应器合成硅烷脂质体，二者展现出不同的刚性，进而导致层厚度存在差异。唯有小角X射线散射（Small-Angle X-ray Scattering，SAXS）能够实现此类尺度的结构表征。