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Developing Novel Drug Delivery Systems For The Treatment Of Epilepsy, Sara Ahmadi

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

Epilepsy is characterized by abnormal electrical activity within the brain, which can result in either generalized or partial seizures. In order to control seizure activity a person must take anti-epilepsy medication, normally in the form of a tablet. The goal is to deliver the drug to the brain in quantities sufficient to eliminate seizures without causing adverse effects. In 30% of the cases, sufferers of epilepsy are unable to be medicated due to the dose required to suppress seizures causing adverse side effects. In addition, other anti-epilepsy treatment such as brain surgery or vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) implantation are very …

Fabrication Of Drug Delivery Systems, Binbin Zhang

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

The aim of the studies in this thesis was to investigate drug delivery systems using a variety of fabrication techniques that can be used for biomedical devices. This thesis was conducted in partnership with the HEARing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) with the aim of developing drug delivery systems that can be incorporated into the cochlear implant (Cochlear Pty. Ltd is a partner of the HEARing CRC). Therefore the materials used to form the drug delivery systems and the fabrication approaches were chosen and used with the final application of the cochlear implant in mind.

First, a multifunctional polypyrrole based system …

Fabrication And Characterisation Of Conducting Fibres For Use In Biomedical Applications, Dorna Esrafilzadeh

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

Fabrication and characterisation of conducting biomaterials in 3-dimensional configuration for biomedical applications have been studied and is presented in this thesis. Different fibre spinning techniques (wet-spinning and electrospinning) were utilised to create multifunctional fibres to be employed for controlled drug delivery and cellular growth supports. Two different classes of organic conductors, namely conducting polymers and graphene, were utilised to induce and develop electrical and electrochemical features in the fibres for their potential applications in drug delivery and cell growth enhancement via electrical stimulation. Physical, mechanical, electrical, electrochemical and biological characterisations of the fibres were investigated.

In chapter two, Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrene …

Wet-Spinning Of Nanostructured Fibres, Rouhollah Jalili

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

The development of nanostructured fibres from organic conductors produced via wet-spinning technique is described in this thesis. The main objectives are (1) to develop the fundamental knowledge and understanding of organic conductors such as conducting polymers, single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and graphene, (2) to create multifunctional nanostructured fibres based on PEDOT:PSS/SWNTs and liquid crystals of graphene oxide (LC GO), (3) to study the effects of spinning formulation on the electrical conductivity, electrochemical performance and mechanical properties of the nanostructured fibres and (4) possible applications of these structures in fibre based energy storage systems.

A novel continuous wet-spinning approach was …

Nano-Composite Materials From Carrageenan, Conducting Polymers And Carbon Nanotubes, Ali Aldalbahi

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

Carrageenan is an anionic, water soluble biopolymer which is well known for its gelforming capabilities. To date it has been mainly employed in the food processing industry and for medical applications. This project aimed to assess its ability to form composite materials with conducting fillers such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and conducting polymers (CPs).

As a result of the research conducted for this thesis, the biopolymer carrageenan was found to act as an excellent dispersant of CNTs and as a dopant during the polymerisation of CPs such as polyaniline (PANi) and polypyrrole (PPy). In addition, carrageenan was shown to have …

Mathematical Modelling For Three Problems In Nanotechnology, Thien Tran-Duc

University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016

The non-covalent interaction energy in multimolecular systems is a topic of considerable interest in nanotechnology, since it holds the key to understanding their equilibrium configurations and mechanical properties. For systems involving large numbers of atoms and molecules, the determination of the interaction energy becomes especially complicated and it provides a major challenge for computational chemistry. This thesis develops mathematical models resulting in analytical formulae for the interaction energy in three specific areas of nanotechnology.

Aromatic interactions are generally found to stabilize the global structure of proteins and the double helical structure of DNA, and they also play an important role …