Porous silicon and silica carriers for delivery of peptide therapeutics.

Peptides have gained tremendous popularity as biological therapeutic agents in recent years due to their favourable specificity, diversity of targets, well-established screening methods, ease of production, and lower cost. However, their poor physiological and storage stability, pharmacokinetics, and fast clearance have limited their clinical translation. Novel nanocarrier-based strategies have shown promise in overcoming these issues.

Inorganic/organic combination: Inorganic particles/polymer composites for tissue engineering applications.

Biomaterials have ushered the field of tissue engineering and regeneration into a new era with the development of advanced composites. Among these, the composites of inorganic materials with organic polymers present unique structural and biochemical properties equivalent to naturally occurring hybrid systems such as bones, and thus are highly desired. The last decade has witnessed a steady increase in research on such systems with the focus being on mimicking the peculiar properties of inorganic/organic combination composites in nature.

Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles with Entrapped Gadolinium for High Relaxivity and ROS-Scavenging Purposes.

Gadolinium chelates are employed worldwide today as clinical contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. Until now, the commonly used linear contrast agents based on the rare-earth element gadolinium have been considered safe and well-tolerated. Recently, concerns regarding this type of contrast agent have been reported, which is why there is an urgent need to develop the next generation of stable contrast agents with enhanced spin-lattice relaxation, as measured by improved relaxivity at lower doses.

Shell properties and concentration stability of acoustofluidic delivery agents.

This paper investigates the shell elastic properties and the number-concentration stability of a new acoustofluidic delivery agent liposome in comparison to Definity™, a monolayer ultrasonic contrast agent microbubble. The frequency dependent attenuation of an acoustic beam passing through a microbubble suspension was measured to estimate the shell parameters. The excitation voltage was adjusted to ensure constant acoustic pressure at all frequencies.

Microencapsulated islet-like microtissues with toroid geometry for enhanced cellular viability.

Transplantation of immuno-isolated islets is a promising strategy to restore insulin-secreting function in patients with Type 1 diabetes. However, the clinical translation of this treatment approach remains elusive due to the loss of islet viability resulting from hypoxia at the avascular transplantation site. To address this challenge, we designed non-spherical islet-like microtissues and investigated the effect of their geometries on cellular viability.

Development of a hybrid peptide dendrimer micellar carrier system and its application in the reformulation of a hydrophobic therapeutic agent derived from traditional Chinese medicine.

The discovery that a cane toad poison-derived steroid, bufalin can significantly impact cancer cell proliferation supports its potential use in cancer therapy. However, its poor aqueous solubility and tissue deposition characteristics hamper its broader application as an anticancer therapeutic agent in its own right. To address this we developed an amphiphilic dendrimer-based delivery system, which self-assembles into discrete micelles in an aqueous environment.

Self-assembling asymmetric peptide-dendrimer micelles - a platform for effective and versatile in vitro nucleic acid delivery.

Despite advancements in the development of high generation cationic-dendrimer systems for delivery of nucleic acid-based therapeutics, commercially available chemical agents suffer from major drawbacks such as cytotoxicity while being laborious and costly to synthesize. To overcome the aforementioned limitations, low-generation cationic peptide asymmetric dendrimers with side arm lipid (cholic and decanoic acid) conjugation were designed, synthesized and systematically screened for their ability to self-assemble into micelles using dynamic light scattering. Cytotoxicity profiling revealed that our entire asymmetric peptide dendrimer library when trialled alone, or as asymmetric dendrimer micelle-nucleic acid complexes, were non-cytotoxic across a broad concentration range.

Skin Delivery of EGCG and Silibinin: Potential of Peptide Dendrimers for Enhanced Skin Permeation and Deposition.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the ability of the peptide dendrimers to facilitate transdermal delivery of antioxidants, silibinin, and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). Drug-peptide dendrimer complexes were prepared and evaluated for their ability to permeate across the skin. The data revealed the ready formation of complexes between drug and peptide dendrimer in a molar ratio of 1:1.

Pharmacology and chemistry of diabetes mellitus and antidiabetic drugs: a critical review.

Diabetes mellitus, an epidemic metabolic disorders characterized by high blood glucose level associated with various macrovascular and microvascular complications, is one of the main causes of human suffering across the globe. Researchers around the world mainly focused on insulin, insulin analogues, oral hypoglycemic agents and various other complementary and alternate medicines to control the blood glucose levels in diabetes. The present review summarizes the disorders associated with elevation of blood glucose level, biochemical & endocrinological aspects and the current strategies to control.

Bioprecursor prodrugs: molecular modification of the active principle.

A large number of therapeutic medications have undesirable properties that may generate pharmacological, pharmaceutical, or pharmacokinetic barriers in clinical drug applications. Metabolism of drugs by Phase-I & Phase-II metabolic pathways for possibility of active metabolites, which could in turn useful for rational designing of bioprecursor prodrugs of the active principle of interest. This review summarizes various approaches & development of drugs, namely bioprecursor prodrugs and active metabolites related to bioprecursor prodrugs.

Oseltamivir: a first line defense against swine flu.

Oseltamivir (has known by its brand name 'Tamiflu') is a prodrug, requiring ester hydrolysis for conversion to the active form, Oseltamivir carboxylate. Oseltamivir was the first orally active neuraminidase inhibitor commercially developed by US based Gilead Sciences and is currently marketed by F. Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche).

Rheumatoid arthritis: a new challenge in coming era.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is mainly an auto-immune disease characterized by inflammation in joints. 1 in 50 people develop RA at some stage and at any age. This review summarizes the etiology, pathophysiology, risk factor, and treatment related to RA.

Sulphonamides as inhibitors of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B: a three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship study using self-organizing molecular field analysis approach.

Protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP 1B), a cytosolic PTP involved in down-regulation of receptor tyrosine kinase activity following stimulation of the insulin or leptin receptors. Thus, PTP 1B inhibitors could potentially ameliorate insulin resistance and normalize plasma glucose and insulin levels without inducing hypoglycemia, and could therefore be a major advancement in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. A three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship (3D-QSAR) study has been performed on a novel class of sulphonamides using self-organizing molecular field analysis (SOMFA) to correlate their chemical structures with their observed PTP 1B inhibitory activities.