Nudelman, Fabio

McKeown, Neil

Machado de los Toyos, Laura María

2022-12-07T14:36:41Z

2022-12-07T14:36:41Z

2022-12-07

Developing a new drug storage system is imperative, especially for macromolecules with limited shelf-lives, pharmaceutical cures for unforeseeable epidemics, and drugs with short-lived therapeutic windows. In this work, calcite is proposed as a new system for drug storage. Since it is a single crystal, it is impenetrable by the primary agents of decay (oxygen, humidity and UV radiation). The system explored in this work achieved 20% occlusion in mass, which is 5% higher than the most excellent occlusion reported in the literature. This is the first evidence of a neutral capsule occluded inside of calcite, which breaks with the assumption that charge is a requisite for crystal-additive interactions. Using CLSM and FIB-SEM tomography, three-dimensional models are built of the occluded capsules in crystals. The occlusion patterns observed revolve around the third-order axis of symmetry. Size selectivity of around 1 µm has been calculated, although most of the occluded capsules observed are in the 100-300 nm range. We propose that this system be applied at the manufacturer scale and that the drugs stored in the crystals can later be processed into consumer-ready pharmaceuticals when needed. The pharmaceutical industry can apply this technology to control the spread of infectious diseases or simply profit from price fluctuations on synthetic precursors.

https://hdl.handle.net/1842/39572

https://github.com/laura-machadodelostoyos/Thesis

http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/2822

en

The University of Edinburgh

calcite

composites

occlusion in crystals

drug delivery

Occlusion of polymeric capsules in calcite single crystals for storage of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy