Mathematical Modeling of Hydrogels: Gelation, Physical Properties, and Drug Delivery 2.0

A special issue of Gels (ISSN 2310-2861).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2021) | Viewed by 4993

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, 20131 Milan, Italy
Interests: colloids; drug delivery; nanogels; tissue engineering; transport phenomena
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Guest Editor
Macromolecular Engineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
Interests: hydrogels; tissue engineering; drug delivery; nanoparticles; macromolecular engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Mathematical modeling has played a key role in the engineering and design of hydrogels for controlled drug delivery.

Mathematical models enable understanding of the critical physical phenomena involved in drug delivery systems and, once their predictive capability has been established, they can be used for the rational design of the device according to the desired performances.

Since the initial contributions of Prof. Takeru Higuchi in 1961, mathematical modeling of drug delivery systems has become a well-established and ever-expanding field. The development of new methods and software optimization as well as increasing computational power have contributed to a refinement of precision in drug delivery modeling. Now complex simulations can accommodate moving boundary conditions or the integration of disparate physical models. In addition, drug delivery modeling benefits not only from standard approaches based on fundamental mass, energy and momentum conservation equations, but also from methods focused on the molecular scale that act as a “computational microscope” and provide valuable insights not always accessible from an experimental point of view.

The present Special Issue is dedicated to an overview of the most relevant applications of mathematical models on the design of hydrogels for controlled drug delivery with special emphasis on gelation, physical properties, and final applications.

Dr. Filippo Rossi
Dr. Mark W. Tibbitt
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • diffusion
  • drug delivery
  • gelation
  • mathematical modeling

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Research

23 pages, 10427 KiB  
Article
Fabrication and Characterization of Poly (vinyl alcohol) and Chitosan Oligosaccharide-Based Blend Films
by Dilshad Qureshi, Ayasharani Sahoo, Biswaranjan Mohanty, Arfat Anis, Viktoryia Kulikouskaya, Kseniya Hileuskaya, Vladimir Agabekov, Preetam Sarkar, Sirsendu Sekhar Ray, Samarendra Maji and Kunal Pal
Gels 2021, 7(2), 55; https://doi.org/10.3390/gels7020055 - 6 May 2021
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4057
Abstract
In the present study, we report the development of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and chitosan oligosaccharide (COS)-based novel blend films. The concentration of COS was varied between 2.5–10.0 wt% within the films. The inclusion of COS added a brown hue to the films. [...] Read more.
In the present study, we report the development of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and chitosan oligosaccharide (COS)-based novel blend films. The concentration of COS was varied between 2.5–10.0 wt% within the films. The inclusion of COS added a brown hue to the films. FTIR spectroscopy revealed that the extent of intermolecular hydrogen bonding was most prominent in the film that contained 5.0 wt% of COS. The diffractograms showed that COS altered the degree of crystallinity of the films in a composition-dependent manner. As evident from the thermal analysis, COS content profoundly impacted the evaporation of water molecules from the composite films. Stress relaxation studies demonstrated that the blend films exhibited more mechanical stability as compared to the control film. The impedance profiles indicated the capacitive-dominant behavior of the prepared films. Ciprofloxacin HCl-loaded films showed excellent antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Bacillus cereus. The prepared films were observed to be biocompatible. Hence, the prepared PVA/COS-based blend films may be explored for drug delivery applications. Full article
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