Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Antimicrobial Hydroxyapatite-Gelatin-Silica Composite Pastes With Tunable Setting Properties, Vuk Uskoković, Shreya Ghosh, Victoria M. Wu

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Bone grafting is one of the commonest surgical procedures, yet all bone substitutes developed so far suffer from specific weaknesses and the search for a bone graft material with ideal physical and biological properties is still ongoing. Calcium phosphate pastes are the most frequently used synthetic bone grafts, yet they (a) often take an impractically long time to set, (b) release the drug content too fast, and (c) do not form pores large enough to accommodate host cells and foster osseointegration. To make up for these deficiencies, we introduced gelatin and silica to pastes composed of 5–15 nm sized hydroxyapatite …

One-Pot Syntheses And Characterizations Of “Click-Able” Polyester Polymers For Potential Biomedical Applications, James F. Beach Ii

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

In this study, a synthetic polyester polymer was designed using polyethylene glycol, sorbitol, glutaric acid and 4-pentynoic acid as monomers. The synthesis was carried out using standard melt polymerization technique and catalyzed by Novozyme-435, an enzyme suitable for polyesterification of biocompatible compounds. The progress of the reaction was monitored with respect to time and vacuum exposure, with samples being subjected to standard characterization protocols. Polymers with high molecular weight and water solubility were chosen for further modification into folate-functionalized polymeric nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to cancer cells. This was achieved by employing a solvent diffusion method, wherein the polymer …

Development Of Diverse Size And Shape Rna Nanoparticles And Investigation Of Their Physicochemical Properties For Optimized Drug Delivery, Daniel L. Jasinski

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

RNA nanotechnology is an emerging field that holds great promise for advancing drug delivery and materials science. Recently, RNA nanoparticles have seen increased use as an in vivo delivery system. RNA was once thought to have little potential for in vivo use due to biological and thermodynamic stability issues. However, these issues have been solved by: (1) Finding of a thermodynamically stable three-way junction (3WJ) motif; (2) Chemical modifications to RNA confer enzymatic stability in vivo; and (3) the finding that RNA nanoparticles exhibit low immunogenicity in vivo.

In vivo biodistribution and pharmacokinetics are affected by the physicochemical …