Nanomedicines Characterization Core Facility is part of the UNC Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery (CNDD).
Nanoparticles fabrication:
- Custom designed microfluidic assembly.
Exosomes isolation and characterization:
- Exosomes isolation from cells media/tissues (precipitation, ultracentrifugation, size exclusion).
- Exosomal markers analysis (western blot, Exo-Check™ Exosome Antibody Array), Proteomics.
Analytical analysis:
- Chemical composition: Infra-red (IR) and Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).
- Polymer analysis (GPC): weight average molar mass (Mw), number average molar mass (Mn), poly dispersity.
- Size, size distribution, particles concentration, surface charge: Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Nanoparticles tracking-based Characterization (NTA (Malvern)), Zetaview (ParticleMetrix).
- Analytical analysis: High Performance Liquid Chromatography, ICP-MS, UV-Vis spectroscopy, UV-temperature correlation.
- Gel Electrophoresis: Capillary electrophoresis (protein purity, isoelectric focusing, Glycan analysis, Plasmid/Nucleic Acid purity, heterogeneity and sizing analysis), Automated Western Blot Analysis (Protein Simple), Gel Imager.
- Elemental analysis: metals analysis in soils, water, food, plants, cells, tissues by ICP-MS.
- Lyophilization: Benchtop freeze-drying system (Labcono, FreeZone 2.5 Liter).
In Vitro Assays:
- Protein concentration (BCA assay).
- Endotoxin contamination (LAL assay).
- In vitro stability analysis.
- In vitro drug release analysis.
- In vitro cellular uptake, transfection and toxicity analysis.
Data analysis and presentation:
- We offer expert opinion related to study design, sample selection/collection and storage, proposal review and development, manuscript development and review.
NCore collaborates with other Cores on UNC’s campus (TEM, Proteomics, Flow Cytometry, NMR, etc.) to facilitate comprehensive analysis of the samples.