Feedback Drug Delivery Vehicles.

摘要

Feedback regulated drug delivery vehicles are capable of utilizing the physiological response as a signal to modulate drug release (i.e., trigger, slow down, or stop drug release) from the carrier. Such vehicles hold great promise for effective drug delivery, especially when therapeutic drugs exhibit lethal consequences at high concentrations. An area that requires particular attention from feedback regulated drug delivery involves release of antidotes in response to opioid overdose. For example, overdose of morphine causes hypoventilation, an inadequate ventilation to perform gas exchanges in lungs leading to increased CO2 concentration in the blood. Therefore, we were interested in taking advantage of CO2 as a toxicity marker, to design a polymeric-hydrogel-based delivery vehicle which is capable of releasing antidotes in response to biomarker. In this project, we specifically aimed at the design and synthesis of polymer hydrogels and nanogels for morphine and naloxone release in response to biomarker, CO2.