Break

This summer I was offered a research fellowship by Indian Academy of Sciences (IAS) to conduct a project on biochemical applications of nanotechnology in Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. According to a study, nearly 40% of the pharmaceutical drugs are poorly water soluble due to which bioavailability of these pharmaceutical drugs is insubstantial and, high dosages of these drugs have to be administered.

My project focused on finding the optimum parameters for producing stable drug nanoparticles in order to increase its dissolution rate. For my study, I chose Nimesulide drug, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and produced its nanoparticles in a spinning disc reactor using the principles of Liquid-Antisolvent precipitation. The size of the raw drug was found to be 18 microns. The project required a comprehensive knowledge of chemical engineering principles such as transport phenomena, biochemical engineering, reaction engineering and mass transfer. Using these principles, supersaturation of drug was achieved. Spinning disc reactor employed applications of momentum and mass transfer for the production of coated nano-drug. The thickness of boundary layer was also attempted to study.

During my project, I monitored influences of operating parameters such as flow rate of solvent-antisolvent, solvent-antisolvent ratio, nimesulide concentration, disc characteristics and rotating disc speed on the nanoparticles size. At the optimum parameters, particles as small as 190 nm were obtained with a substantial increase in dissolution rate. Samples were analyzed using Dynamic Light Scattering and UV-Vis spectroscopy.

This project is a gateway to finding an efficient method of drug delivery. Using this method, the bioavailability of the drugs could potentially increase which would not only reduce the dosage of the drug administered but also make the drug economically feasible. Production of nano-drug and development of generic pathways for drug delivery could hold the potential cure for epidemic diseases like AIDS, cancer, and tuberculosis.