US 11,878,080 B2
Protein capsules
Tuomas Knowles, Cambridge (GB); Ulyana Shimanovich, Cambridge (GB); Christopher Dobson, Cambridge (GB); and David Weitz, Cambridge, MA (US)
Assigned to CAMBRIDGE ENTERPRISE LIMITED, Cambridge (GB); and PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, Cambridge, MA (US)
Appl. No. 15/508,876
Filed by Cambridge Enterprise Limited, Cambridge (GB); and President and Fellows of Harvard College, Cambridge, MA (US)
PCT Filed Sep. 4, 2015, PCT No. PCT/EP2015/070300
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Mar. 3, 2017,
PCT Pub. No. WO2016/034728, PCT Pub. Date Mar. 10, 2016.
Claims priority of application No. 1415681 (GB), filed on Sep. 4, 2014.
Prior Publication US 2017/0202779 A1, Jul. 20, 2017
Int. Cl. A61K 9/48 (2006.01); A61K 9/51 (2006.01); B01J 13/08 (2006.01)
CPC A61K 9/4825 (2013.01) [A61K 9/4833 (2013.01); A61K 9/5169 (2013.01); B01J 13/08 (2013.01)] 23 Claims
 
1. A population of capsules, wherein each capsule comprises a shell of material that comprises of a self-assembly of one or more proteins, wherein the self-assembly of the one or more proteins is an amyloid assembly of the one or more proteins held together by non-covalent interactions between neighboring protein molecules, wherein the population of capsules is formed by a method comprising:
(i) contacting a flow of a first phase and a flow of a second phase in a channel, thereby generating in the channel a dispersion of discrete regions of the second phase in the first phase, wherein one of the first or second phase is an aqueous phase and the other phase is a water immiscible phase, and the one of the first and second phase comprises one or more proteins suitable for self-assembly, wherein the one or more proteins is provided in monomeric form and is soluble;
(ii) permitting the one or more proteins to self-assemble at the boundary layer of the discrete regions between the first and second phases under denaturing conditions; and
(iii) optionally collecting the outflow from the channel, thereby obtaining a droplet, which contains a capsule,
and wherein the one or more proteins each comprise 50 or more amino acids,
and wherein the droplets have a size distribution having a relative standard deviation (RSD) of at most 10%, and wherein each capsule has an average diameter in the range of 0.5 μm to 100 μm.