Session: Undergraduate Research Posters: Biochemistry:

Liposomes can be used as a transport system in order to transfer porphyrins of varying solubility into cancerous tumors. Liposomes may exist with differing lamellar identities, and in the case of water-insoluble porphyrins (tetratolyl and tetramethoxy porphyrins), the hydrophobic phospholipid bilayers serve as effective transport mechanisms. In order to incorporate water-insoluble porphyrins into cancerous tumors with the greatest efficiency and accuracy, the question remains whether unilamellar or multilamellar may serve as the ideal transport system. While the concentration of porphyrin incorporated into multilamellar liposomes may be greater due to the increased volume of hydrophobic regions within the same liposome, it was suspected that unilamellar liposomes would be more effective with regards to effective incorporation of porphyrin into tumor tissue. Liposomes were prepared using two different methods in order to produce both multilamellar and unilamellar liposomes as transport apparatuses for the transport of multiple water-insoluble porphyrins. Unilamellar liposomes were prepared via the utilization of rotary vacuum evaporation and sonication, while multilamellar liposomes were produced via a simple resuspension method.

Pamela Kerrigan

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