Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 22).This work builds on the initial design of a polymer microchip for controlled-release drug delivery. Currently, the microchip employs a nonbiodegradable sealant layer, and the new design aims to fabricate it only of biodegradable parts. Experiments were conducted to evaluate two potential designs that are fabricated via lamination, and a final design was proposed based on the results. Design 1 sought to replace the sealant directly with a PLA backing layer, but the laminated backing layer was found to leak in 14C-dextran release experiments. Design 2 used a laminated film instead of the original injected membrane. The laminated film was optimized to a 200- [mu]m thick poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) 2A membrane, and the film-laminated microchip was shown to release 14C-dextran within a 40-day period. The final proposed design was based on Design 2, which demonstrated more potential as a future means of drug delivery.by Jina Kim.S.B
