Using green chemistry to deliver cutting-...(s can be used to make polymer drug coati...)
s can be used to make polymer drug coatings, using biodegradable plastics, just like those used in dissolvable surgical stitches. The polymer is used to encapsulate the drug before it is injected into the body.
Conventional chemical processes often use high temperatures or volatile, and potentially toxic, solvents such as chloroform, benzene, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Solvent residues may remain in the product after manufacture and these can be toxic to the patient and to the environment requiring special handling and recycling measures to prevent them from escaping into the atmosphere.
They can also cause degradation of the drug. Many bioactive drug compounds are adversely affected by high temperatures and conventional solvents, which can destroy up to 50 per cent of the drug molecules intended to help the patient.
But the clean green chemistry techniques being developed at Nottingham aim to remove these conventional solvents from the process altogether. Because supercritical fluids can be used to support solvent-free chemical processes, creating new techniques that would be difficult or impossible to achieve in normal solvents or by conventional processing.
Professor Howdles research has demonstrated that biodegradable polymers can be plasticised at near room temperatures using supercritical CO2.
The low temperature means delicate bioactive components, such as growth factors or proteins, can be mixed into the plasticised polymer without any loss of activity.
The process overcomes a major obstacle to the development of new drug delivery devices because it means that patients will be able to receive biopharmaceuticals which do not survive conventional chemical processing because they are either solvent or sensitive to heat.
Professor Howdle said: Many very potent new drugs based on proteins are being discovered all the time. But a major problem the pharmaceutical industry faces is tha
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| Contact: Professor Steve Howdle steve.howdle@nottingham.ac.uk University of Nottingham Source:Eurekalert |
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