In my thesis I have made two experiments suitable for primary school that demonstrate the basic principles of controlled drug release and the potential of targeted drug delivery system in a school laboratory.
The first, theoretical part describes alginate, which is the base for both experiments due to its ability to form microspheres, its properties, application and placement in the curriculum for primary and high schools. The second part describes the selected, simplified and optimized method suitable for demonstration of controlled release and the principle of the targeted delivery system in a school laboratory.
The experiment which demonstrates the controlled release of substances by using alginate in a school laboratory is divided into two parts. The first part represents the production of alginate microspheres with a model substance that is based on the authors Friedli and Schlager (2005), while the second part enables the observation of the release of the model substances from alginate microspheres. Due to its affordability, fast release from alginate microspheres and colouring, which allows direct observation of the release of a model substance, I chose food colouring as the model substance. The experiment does not include any complex steps; the laboratory equipment and the chemicals needed are affordable and safe to use. The experiment serves as a demonstration of controlled release, in which the food colouring is a model of low-molecular-weight drug with a controlled release, since it is visible in an aqueous solution of calcium chloride within a few minutes but takes hours to completely leach out.
I also divided the second experiment, which demonstrates the targeted delivery system by using alginate in the school laboratory, into two parts. The first part represents the production of chitosan-alginate microspheres with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and the second part enables the observation of the release of BSA from chitosan-aliginate microspheres. I chose and tested three different procedures for the production of chitosan-alginate microspheres. The procedure based on Meng et. al. (2011) has proven to be the best due to the simple, time-appropriate synthesis and the compactness of the synthesized microspheres.
In observing the BSA release from the chitosan-alginate microspheres I chose and tested three different methods for determining the released BSA: the determination of the BSA absorption with a spectrophotometer, the semi-quantitative BSA determination with a biuret reaction and the determination of the light transmittance of the solution with the school spectrometer SpektraTM. The most appropriate method to demonstrate the target delivery system in the school laboratory has proven to be the semi-quantitative BSA determination with biuret reaction. The results are quickly visible and identifiable. Besides, primary pupils already know the meaning and functioning of biuret reaction, so they can conclude from the results that the microspheres in the solution with acidic pH-value release less BSA than in the solution with pH-value 7. Therefore biuret reaction can be used for demonstration of drug delivery to colon, where BSA represents the drug, beaker with 0.5% aqueous solution of hydrochloric acid illustrates the environment in the stomach and the beaker with a buffer with pH-value 7 the environment in the small intestine.
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