Equipment
microDISS Profiler
We study properties like solubility, dissolution, supersaturation and precipitation of active compounds and their formulations using the μDiss Profiler (Pion). It is equipped with six individually controlled in situ fiber optic UV probes and operates with minimal sample material from either stock solutions, powder suspensions or discs (with controlled surface area to determine intrinsic dissolution rate, IDR). Furthermore, it can also be coupled with the μFLUX chambers to simulate absorption through a bio-mimetic membrane alongside the dissolution testing.
Lipolysis
We investigate the in vitro digestion of lipid-based formulations (LBF) using a lipolysis model set-up with two parallel temperature-controlled vessels that contain simulated intestinal fluid in fasted or fed state. Lipid digestion is initiated by the addition of enzymes and the concentration of the liberated fatty acids and the pH is monitored during the experiment. Concentration of the drug in aqueous, oil or precipitated pellet phase is determined.
Raman probe
We perform ex situ and in situ solid state characterization of drugs and drug precipitates with a Raman RXN2 Hybrid spectrometer (Kaiser Optical Systems Inc.) equipped with a PhAT probe.
Caco-2 permeability assay
We study the in vitro transport of compounds across Caco-2 monolayers. The permeability is assessed by quantifying the compound concentration in the basolateral compartment with HPLC or UPLC-MS/MS.
Dynamic Light Scattering
We measure colloidal particle size as well as zeta-potential with a Anton Paar LiteSizer 500.
Analytics
We quantify the drug concentration in our various assays using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC, Agilent Infinity 1290) with vials or well plates, or MS/MS (Waters, Sciex) as well as a Tecan plate reader.
Viscometer
We characterize the viscosity of excipients and formulations with a Brookfield DV1 viscometer.
High-performance computing
We have six dual GPU-servers (Pascal and Turing) with 48 core Intel Xeon CPUs for computational simulations.
Additive manufacturing (3D-printing)
We have two different types of 3D-printers. Bio X 3D Bioprinter from Cellink equipped with three exchangeable printheads (heated pneumatic, thermoplastic and ink-jet printhead) enabling printing of different types of materials. We also have a ZMorph VX Multitool 3D-printer used for fused deposition modeling (FDM).
Extrudation
We use a Filabot EX2 Extruder to make filaments for 3D-printing.
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
We have an Alpha II FTIR spectrophotometer from Bruker, equipped with a platinum ATR module for spectroscopic analysis of solids, powders and liquids.