Pollard, Thomas D.;
(2024)
The use of Droplet-On-Demand Printing Technologies for Healthcare Applications.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The efficacy of current healthcare treatments is low. Orally administered drugs lead to systemic drug distribution, while many diseases are only treated reactively. An alternative approach to healthcare would be localised, personalised delivery of drugs to the desired tissue with proactive disease risk monitoring. Insulin is a particularly promising disease biomarker, as dysfunctional insulin signalling is a reliable biomarker for increased risk of cancer, neurological diseases, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. However, there is currently no simple and easy method for point-of-care insulin quantification. In this thesis, droplet-on-demand printing (DODP) was investigated for both localised delivery and production of biosensors for biomarker quantification. DODP technologies produce small volume droplets, which can be dispensed onto a variety of substrates for personalised medicine. DODP was used as a localised drug delivery method. For the first time, inkjet printing directly onto tissue was demonstrated as a drug delivery mechanism. An anti-fungal drug was dispensed directly onto nails for onychomycosis treatment. A modified disc diffusion assay with human nail clippings showed the drug could pass through the nail and inhibit the growth of the fungi. DODP was also used to print drugs onto contact lenses for ocular disease treatment. The printed drug did not affect the optical properties of the contact lens and the drug was found to be released over multiple hours. DODP was further used to produce lateral flow tests (LFT) for measuring insulin concentration. Different anti-insulin antibodies were quantified using surface plasmon resonance. Different conjugation methods were tested, and the quantification of the LFTs was investigated. The LFT was able to reliably achieve a limit of detection of 5 ng/ml, with the potential limit of 0.1 ng/ml. Overall, this work represents a step forward in the use and application of DODP for personalised therapy.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The use of Droplet-On-Demand Printing Technologies for Healthcare Applications |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10193525 |
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