Nanofibers have interesting characteristics such as a large surface area to volume ratio, flexibility, and superior mechanical performance. For this reason, these fibers are used in many important applications such as drug delivery system as well as tissue engineering. Drugs are now able to be controllably released to target cells, which decreases side effects. This provides an economic benefit to the consumer as well as drug synthesis systems. Nanofibers are biocompatible, making electrospinning an ideal method of drug delivery to target cells. Maltose, a disaccharide consisting of two linked glucose units, has been shown to control the growth of microorganisms. Nanofibers consisting of maltose were dissolved in dichloromethane at 10% concentration and prepared and characterized using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Silver sulfadiazine, an antibiotic used especially for burn wounds, was also incorporated into the solution. The resulting nanofibers were tested on gram positive and gram negative bacterial colonies to assess the rate of degradability and immersion.  Future research will focus on perfecting the method for incorporation of the antibiotic to effectively show the strength and antibacterial effectiveness of the fibers. The fibers are expected to dissipate into the body in low concentrations over a certain time period, therefore causing little to no side effects in the subject. As a result, drugs will be able to be released to target cells controllably, which decreases side effects.

Incorporation of silver-based antibiotic in maltose nanofibers for drug enhancement

255th National Meeting (2018)

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