R.M. Gamini Rajapakse
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and Imperial College, London
Title: Synthesis, characterization and release kinetics of target-specific, porous nanoparticle- encapsulated anticancer drugs
Biography
Biography: R.M. Gamini Rajapakse
Abstract
The pH-sensitive drug delivery systems can achieve targeted drug delivery and systemic control release. The purpose of this research is to synthesize composite formulae comprising of anticancer drugs such as bis(8-hydroxyquinoline), cisplatin, doxorubicin etc. encapsulated in biocompatible and non-toxic porous inorganic nanoparticles, characterize them and to study the drug loading capacities and slow-release kinetics the latter triggered by the pH of the medium. We have successfully synthesized porous nanoparticles of both calcium carbonate, magenesium hydroxide and hydroxyapatite through soft-templated and molecular-templated bottom up approaches and the above anticancer drugs were separately encapsulated in them. Over 30% drug loading capacity and over 80% encapsulation efficiency were obtained for all drugs. The materials synthesized were extensively characterized by XRD, FT-IR, SEM and XRF techniques and the drug encapsulation in porous nanoparticles confirmed. Drug release kinetics was investigated in aqueous media at different pH values and found that favorable slow release kinetics is obtained at slightly acidic pH values typical of those of cancer cells.
There is hardly any release of the drugs at neutral or slightly basic pH values typical of those of blood plasma and healthy cell fluids. As such, advancing pH-sensitive drug delivery systems can make a significant improvement in cancer chemotherapy by reducing both cytotoxicity of drugs to healthy cells and drug dosage requirements while increasing the bioavailability and efficacy of the drugs