Study of enzyme loading in a porous silicon matrix

Great interest has been given these last few years to the use of porous silicon particles for drug delivery inside the body, whether by targeting specific places in the body or not. Indeed, loading porous silicon particles with active biomolecules (such as cancer drugs for instance) allows a targeted or a slow release over time in the body thanks to the gradual degradation of the porous matrix instead of having a burst release of the molecules. In order to obtain this gradual degradation we based this work on the observation that the dissolution of oxidized porous silicon in a saline solution is inhibited in the presence of calcium ions. This led us to believe that the inhibition could be due to the formation of a calcium silicate shell covering the silicon oxide, thus slowing down the degradation of the oxidized silicon. This work then focused on a preliminary step to particle loading by studying the loading of an enzyme (the lysozyme) in an oxidized porous silicon matrix on a chip with a solution of calcium chloride allowing the possible formation of the calcium silicate shell