Lu, Anqi2020-11-172020-11-172020-08https://hdl.handle.net/11299/217114University of Minnesota M.S. thesis. August 2020. Major: Pharmaceutics. Advisors: Jayanth Panyam, Timothy Wiedmann. 1 computer file (PDF); ix, 112 pages.Nanoparticles are an excellent drug delivery platform for cancer therapy. Flash nanoprecipitation (FNP) is a novel nanofabrication technique that enables high drug loading and narrow size distribution. Several factors such as drug amount, polymer amount, polymer molecular weight, solvent, and surfactant concentration play a critical role in determining the particle size, polydispersity index, and drug loading when producing nanoparticles. But how these factors affect the properties of nanoparticles prepared by FNP, and whether those properties can be predicted is not known. Design of experiment (DOE) method can help investigate the relationship between responses and factors (or interaction between factors) while significantly reducing the number of runs. We propose that applying DOE to nanoparticle preparation by FNP would allow us to predict the parameter values for an optimized nanoparticle formulation. In this study, paclitaxel is used as a model drug, and the goal of this study was to determine the effect of various formulation factors on properties of PLGA nanoparticles fabricated by FNP and draw the predict profile.enThesis or Dissertation