(40h) Role of Nanoporous Carbons in Controlled Release of Drugs

Controlled and sustained release of bioactive agents, including drug and related materials are one of the major challenges of human health care and medical sciences. A well-designed and novel passive drug delivery system can be described as a smart medium that maintains the therapeutic level of drug concentration in the specific targets of human physiology for a sustained period of time. Passive drug delivery is controlled by the molecular diffusion of a confined drug from its carrier media to its specific neighboring physiological environment by concentration gradient, response of immune system or by the presence of some external stimuli. Porous materials can serve as an excellent passive drug delivery media and several successful researches on the role of porous media have widened its scope to be a universal drug carrier. It can confine the poorly soluble drug via high specific area within its porous moiety and well control the release of desired drug in the therapeutic level for a sustained interval of time with the help of diffusion barrier. This process leads to zero premature release and eliminates the possibility of saw tooth profile of drug concentration or toxic level of prolonged heavy drug exposure.  Mesoporous silica materials were most widely employed as drug delivery media for multitude of drugs, however, owing to several drawbacks of silica based materials; there is a certain need of other porous matrices that can perform well as a universal drug carrier. In this research, several micro- and mesoporous carbons were examined for the controlled release of different kinds of model drugs. All the carbon materials were also examined for their biocompatibility. The results of these experiments suggest that the nanoporous carbon materials are biocompatible and can well control the release of the drugs and thereby making them suitable candidates for controlled release purposes.