Droplet microfluidics offers exquisite control over the flows of multiple fluids in microscale, enabling fabrication of advanced microparticles with precisely tunable structures and compositions in a high throughput manner. The combination of these remarkable features with proper materials and fabrication methods has enabled high efficiency, direct encapsulation of actives in microparticles whose features and functionalities can be well controlled. These microparticles have great potential in a wide range of bio-related applications including drug delivery, cell-laden matrices, biosensors and even as artificial cells. In this review, we briefly summarize the materials, fabrication methods, and microparticle structures produced with droplet microfluidics. We also provide a comprehensive overview of their recent uses in biomedical applications. Finally, we discuss the existing challenges and perspectives to promote the future development of these engineered microparticles.

Peroxide-cured natural rubber (NR) reinforced by zinc dimethacrylate (ZDMA) was prepared. The cocrosslinking action of ZDMA and the formation and evolution of the phase morphology induced by ZDMA during the curing process were systematically investigated. A curemeter and a differential scanning calorimeter were used to investigate the cure kinetics, and the kinetic parameters and the apparent activation energy were obtained. The phase morphology of the composites obtained from transmission electron microscopy revealed that separated nanophases of poly(zinc dimethacrylate) (PZDMA) existed in the rubber matrix. Covalent crosslinking, physical adsorption, and ionic crosslinking simultaneously existed in the composites, and they were determined with an equilibrium swelling method. On the basis of this, new microstructure models of NR/ZDMA composites and ionic crosslinking were put forward. V

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Effective cancer therapies often demand delivery of combinations of drugs to inhibit multidrug resistance through synergism, and the development of multifunctional nanovehicles with enhanced drug loading and delivery efficiency for combination therapy is currently a major challenge in nanotechnology. However, such combinations are more challenging to administer than single drugs and can require multipronged approaches to delivery. In addition to being stable and biodegradable, vehicles for such therapies must be compatible with both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, and release drugs at sustained therapeutic levels. Here, we report synthesis of porous silicon nanoparticles conjugated with gold nanorods [composite nanoparticles (cNPs)] and encapsulate them within a hybrid polymersome using double-emulsion templates on a microfluidic chip to create a versatile nanovehicle. This nanovehicle has high loading capacities for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, and improves drug delivery efficiency by accumulating at the tumor after i.v. injection in mice. Importantly, a triple-drug combination suppresses breast tumors by 94% and 87% at total dosages of 5 and 2.5 mg/kg, respectively, through synergy. Moreover, the cNPs retain their photothermal properties, which can be used to significantly inhibit multidrug resistance upon near-infrared laser irradiation. Overall, this work shows that our nanovehicle has great potential as a drug codelivery nanoplatform for effective combination therapy that is adaptable to other cancer types and to molecular targets associated with disease progression. nanomaterials | drug delivery | cancer therapy | microfluidics R ecent advances in cancer therapy development often demand the simultaneous delivery of multiple drugs that work in a synergistic manner (1-4). These drugs can vary in their chemical properties, further adding complexity to their encapsulation and delivery. Delivery systems can suffer from low loading efficiencies, particularly when combinations of both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs are required. Hydrophobic anticancer drugs face additional significant barriers to their use as they have low bioavailability and are rapidly eliminated from the body. In vivo, delivery of drug combinations (5, 6) requires specific, biodegradable vehicles to protect the therapeutics from the physiological environment and to guide and control their release (7-14). Additionally, stimuli-responsive treatments are increasingly widely used to complement drug-based therapy (15)(16)(17)(18)(19). For example, photothermal therapy promotes cell death using heat that is locally activated by near-infrared (NIR) radiation (20). However, it is challenging to integrate high drug-loading efficiency, the ability to coload multiple therapeutics, and stimuli responsiveness into a single carrier system. Carriers that move toward realizing these multipronged approaches to cancer therapy will push the frontiers of drug delivery and enable the development of new, more effective treatments.In this work, we sy...