In the case of pre-existing and future illnesses, the merit of effectively delivering the correct drug dosage to a patient remains highly important in order to maintain satisfactory public health.  By exploring alternate drug delivery devices, new and improved methods for delivering drugs to a patient become possible, thus expanding treatment options.  Studying the components that make up a drug delivery device provides valuable insight towards the interactions that occur between the drug, delivery device, and human body which ultimately affects the nature in which the drug is administered.  In this study, the impact of a greater polymer size is predicted to increase the time of cumulative drug release.  Although the silica portion serves as a contributor to the rate at which the drug is released, the size of the polymer is also predicted to be highly influential of the drug’s overall release pattern in this nanocomposite device model.  To explore these interactions, PEG is loaded with a variety of NSAIDs, as many compounds from this drug class contain structurally similar components.  The PEG polymers are weighed before and after loading to determine sufficient drug uptake.  Proton NMR as well as SEM are utilized to characterize chemical and physical of drug entrance into the polymer matrix.  A sol-gel process is carried out through TEOS saturation to perform a linkage between the polymer and silica components to complete the fabrication of the nanocomposite.  C-13 NMR is used to characterize and confirm the formation of the PEG-NSAID-silica nanocomposite.  Once fabricated, each nanocomposite is evaluated based on its release characteristics.  The release profiles are attained from UV-vis spectroscopy on a basis of percentage of cumulative release versus time in minutes.  The plots reveal trends in release patterns and characteristics pertaining to the fabricated delivery device.  Ultimately, this research project benefits drug delivery studies, valuable to the field of pharmaceutics, as underlying principles of drug interactions corresponding to the properties of its device are assessed.<br/>

Exploration of drug release profiles of several NSAIDs encapsulated in varying chain lengths of polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer-silica composites

255th National Meeting (2018)

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