(516an) Modern Control-Based Delivery Strategies In Biomedicine: The Effects Of Stratum Corneum Desquamation On Percutaneous Drug Absorption

Transdermal drug-delivery technologies continue to play a significant role in Biomedicine. Devices, such as Transderm Scop®, NicoDerm® CQ®, and Nitro-Dur®, have affected and even transformed the lives of millions of people. While pharmaceutical research funds are mainly allocated to the development of new materials and smart technologies that can overcome the formidable skin penetration barrier, little attention has been paid to the applications of control theory as a viable strategy to optimize controlled-release transdermal drug-delivery systems. Mathematical modeling has provided insight into the transport mechanism and helps to simulate conditions that would be impractical to implement in real-life clinical settings. However, a control framework, which would i) provide a reduced-order solution, amenable to spreadsheet simulations, ii) facilitate the testing of several drug dosage regimens (e.g., continuous, intermittent), iii) find and maintain an individualized therapeutic release rate, is notably lacking. This contribution addresses these issues while attempting to understand percutaneous drug absorption influenced by epidermal turnover (i.e, desquamation). Our approach uses the familiar Laplace transform formalism to answer questions often posed by the controlled-release community.