The design and engineering of nanoscopic drug delivery vehicles that stably encapsulate lipophilic drug molecules, transport their loaded cargo to specific target sites, and release their payload in a controlled manner are of great interest in therapeutic applications, especially for cancer chemotherapy. This dissertation focuses on chemically cross-linked, water-soluble polymer nanoparticles, termed nanogels, which constitute a promising scaffold and offer the potential to circumvent encapsulation stability issues. A facile synthetic method for a new class of self-cross-linked polymer nanogels, synthesized by an intra/intermolecular disulfide cross-linking reaction in aqueous media, is described here. This simple emulsion-free method affords noncovalent lipophilic guest encapsulation and surface functionalization that may allow for targeted delivery. The encapsulation stability of lipophilic molecules sequestered within these nanoscopic containers is evaluated by a fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) based method developed by our research group. We demonstrate that the encapsulation stability of noncovalently encapsulated guest molecules in disulfide cross-linked polymer nanogels can be tuned and that guest release can be achieved in response to a biologically relevant stimulus (GSH). In addition, varied hydrophobicity in the self-cross-linked nanogels affects the lipophilic loading capacity and encapsulation stability. We reveal that optimal loading capacity is limited by encapsulation stability, where over-loading of lipophilic molecules in the nanoscopic containers may cause undersirable leakage and severely compromise the viability of such systems for drug delivery and other biological applications.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de développer un concept inédit permettant l’utilisation de silices mésoporeuses pour encapsuler des principes actifs cosmétiques de façon permanente, ce qui permet d’améliorer leur tolérance cutanée, d’optimiser leur stabilité à la lumière tout en préservant leur efficacité et de faciliter leur formulation au sein de produits cosmétiques. Pour cela, la voie consistant à encapsuler des filtres UV à usage cosmétique au sein de silices mésoporeuses de type MCM-41 de façon in-situ a été choisie car elle semblait la plus propice à l’encapsulation d’une grande quantité de principes actifs de façon permanente. Deux filtres UV ont été étudiés un lipophile, nommé Parsol MCX, et un hydrophile, appelé Parsol HS. Pour l’ensemble des principes actifs étudiés, un taux d’encapsulation approprié a été obtenu et les caractérisations, effectuées notamment par RMN du solide, ont permis de montrer que l’encapsulation est effective au sein des pores ce qui, couplé à la bonne stabilité de l’encapsulation dans le cas de l’actifs hydrophile, garantit un contact minimum entre l’actif et la peau du consommateur. En revanche, un relargage important de filtre UV lipophile a été constaté. Il a été établi que les propriétés physico-chimiques des matériaux diffèrent significativement suivant que les principes actifs encapsulés soient lipophiles ou hydrophiles. Dans tous les cas, l’organisation poreuse, l’ordre structural et la morphologie des particules contenant des principes actifs varient significativement par rapport aux silices mésoporeuses de référence de type MCM-41, synthétisées sans principe actif. La présence de principe actif au sein du milieu réactionnel a donc une influence sur la structure et la texture des matériaux obtenus, ce qui est dû aux interactions entre les molécules de principe actif, les espèces silicate et les molécules de tensioactif au sein du milieu réactionnel. / The objective of this thesis is to develop a new concept that consists to permanently encapsulate cosmetic active ingredients into mesoporous silica. The encapsulation of these active molecules improves their skin tolerance, optimizes their light stability while preserving their effectiveness and facilitates their formulation in cosmetic products. Thus, UV filters have been encapsulated in MCM-41 type mesoporous silica by using in-situ route because it seemed the most efficient route to achieve permanently encapsulation of large quantities of active. Two UV filters have been studied. One is lipophilic (Parsol MCX) and the other is a hydrophilic (Parsol HS). For all the active molecules studied, an appropriate encapsulation rate was obtained and the characterizations, particularly these performed by solid-state NMR, have shown that the encapsulation is effective within the pores which, coupled with the good stability of encapsulation in the case of hydrophilic actives, ensures minimal contact between the active and the consumer's skin. In contrast, a significant release of lipophilic UV filter was found. It was established that the physico-chemical properties of the synthesized materials differ significantly according to the lipophilic or hydrophilic nature of the encapsulated molecules. In all cases, the porous organization, the structural order and the morphology of the particles containing active ingredients vary significantly compared to the reference MCM-41 type mesoporous silica, synthesized without active ingredient. Thus, the presence of the active ingredient in the reaction medium has an influence on the structure and the texture of the synthesized materials, which is due to interactions between the actives molecules, the silicate species and the surfactant molecules in the reaction medium.