DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/6JK3-Y380
Defense Date
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Hu Yang
Abstract
Topical medication is a standard treatment for glaucoma. However, frequent dosing makes the therapy inconvenient and patient unfriendly. There is a great need to develop new topical formulations that provide long lasting noninvasive drug release. In this thesis, novel clickable dendrimer hydrogels for anti-glaucoma drug delivery were synthesized and characterized. Polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers have been widely applied for drug delivery. The physical characteristics they possess include monodispersity, water solubility, encapsulation ability, and a large number of surface groups. Polycationic PAMAM dendrimer G3 was surface modified with alkyne-PEG5-acid and then reacted with polyethylene glycol bisazide (PEG-BA, 1100 gmol-1) through click chemistry to form a cross-linked hydrogel. The resulting hydrogels were characterized in terms of mechanical properties, swelling, structural morphology, pH-dependent degradation, anti-glaucoma drugs (brimonidine tartrate and timolol maleate) release and cytotoxicity. To fully explore PAMAM dendrimers to make clickable hydrogels, polyanionic PAMAM dendrimer G4.5 was also surface modified with propargylamine to possess alkyne groups and successfully formed a hydrogel with PEG-BA. The work conducted in the thesis shows that clickable dendrimer hydrogels were successfully developed and shown to possess desired properties for delivery of anti-glaucoma drugs.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
May 2014