Sharif Digital Repository

In the present research the methods and challenges to ocular drug delivery have been investigated with more emphasis on ocular diseases that do not have any approved treatment. Periocular route is a promising alternative to the common routes of ocular drug delivery especially for treatment of posterior eye diseases. Based on barriers for efficient drug delivery to the eye, magnetic drug targeting revealed to be influential to eliminate some obstacles of this route which has not been worked before. It is hypothesized that the particles can pulled into the eye or will be trapped inside the sclera tissue or even if it is not happened, they can stay behind the sclera and magnetic force can... 

One of the major problems in cancer treatment is the side effects of the drugs. Nowadays, scientists are developing smart nanocarriers which used for diagnosis and delivering drugs in order to circulate through blood vessels, pass the immune system, attach to cancer cells and kill them without any side effects. In the first research of this thesis, magnetic nanoparticles were coated by modified alginate and used as smart nanocarriers. Magnetic nanocarrier were sysnthesized based on hydrophobic coating of oleic acid and hydrazine oleate-modified alginate shell. The resulting carrier is pH-sensitive and the alginate shell removes in the low pH medium. DOX was placed between hydrophobic chains.... 

Due to the increased public awareness about the role of food on health, an increased interest of consuming fortified food has grown rapidly. Probiotic bacteria and DHA poly-unsaturated fatty acid are two major bioactive ingredients becoming increasingly popular in food fortification industry due to their beneficial effects. However, high susceptibility of probiotic bacteria during production, maintenance and digestion in acidic and enzymatic conditions of gastrointestinal tract results in decreasing the survivability and therefore reducing health effects in body. Besides, having multiple double bonds in the structure of DHA fatty acid leads to oxidative degradation that produces volatile... 

Currently, using biocompatible and injectable polymeric microcarriers as one of the efficient methods to transfer cells and active agents has gained much attention for bone regenerative medicine. However, they have some drawbacks such as weak mechanical stability and lack of mineral materials, which are the major ingredients of the bone tissues. Accordingly, it is expected that mimicking the chemical and physical structure of bone tissues could be valuable in their medical applications. Herein, a new porous biodegradable microcarriers (MCs) made of silk fibroin-oxidized alginate-bioactive glass was fabricated by electrospraying method. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to study the... 

This study aimed to prepare a type of microcapsule that microencapsulates folic acid and iron at the same time and protects these two substances against environmental and gastrointestinal conditions. Simultaneous release of these two nutrients has dual health properties and improves the efficiency of folic acid microencapsulation. In this study, biocomposites were formed containing alginate, pectin, and carboxymethylcellulose, and the microcapsules were synthesized by the ionization of calcium-alginate ions. Biocomposite optimization mixture with 13 experiments using experimental design software, optimal combination design method based on repopulation separator, restoring folic acid... 

Significant advances in biotechnology have led to the emergence of a cost-effective way with less ethical issues to study disease, organ functions, tumors, and their response to drugs besides studying on animals. Microfluidic devices and organ on a chip (tumor on a chip) were introduced to remove those obstacles. Organ on a chip is a powerful tool for studying different types of tissues and simulating diseases, especially cancers, for biological and medical applications. Organ (tumor) on a chip is considered as a smaller scale of the real organ or tumor and it causes to the real-time study of tissues and their functions more accurately. In this study, to fabricate a droplet-based... 

Microfluidic systems have the ability to produce microgels with uniform size distribution and spherical shape due to the laminar flow and better control of the flow rates. Spherical microgels with same size can be used as high-potential carriers for drug release. An important challenge in the production of these drug-carrying microgels is the simultaneous process of drug loading into microgels and their production. The overall goal of this project was to produce drug-carrying microgels with uniform size distribution that show controlled drug release. To achieve this goal, various factors such as the type of polymer, the type of drug, the volume ratio of the polymer and the drug and the... 

Cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of death worldwide. For instance, in 2015, almost 31% of the world’s mortality rate was due to these causes. One of these diseases is cardiac coronary vessels’ occlusion which leads to the insufficient blood supply to the heart tissue and cardiomyocytes death after Myocardial Infarction (MI). After MI, a hierarchy of events in the heart tissue changes heart muscle and forms cardiac fibrosis. This fibrotic tissue does not have the native one’s properties and function, so it will cause cardiac arrest and patient death. Therefore, it is obvious that vascular network plays a crucial role in the heart function. The importance of cardiac... 

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) currently remains a considerable challenge for clinical treatments. CVDs account for N17.5 million deaths per year and will predictably increase to 23.6 million by 2030. The main purpose is to create human model systems to study the effect of disease mutations or drug treatment on the heart. In addition, engineered cardiac tissues are considered promising candidates to be transplanted to improve the function of diseased hearts. For engineered active tissues/organs, 3D bioprinting can fabricate complex tissue architecture with a spatiotemporal distribution of bioactive substances (cells, growth factors, and others) to better guide tissue regeneration. However,... 

Beta cells are responsible for secreting insulin to maintain normoglycaemia throughout the individual’s life. Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) is a metabolic disorder characterized by an autoimmune response that promotes the destruction of beta-cells within the pancreatic islets, resulting in lifelong inadequate insulin secretion. Encapsulating beta cells inside a semipermeable membrane to protect encapsulated cells from direct contact with the host immune system, is a new way to treat type 1 diabetes without the need for long-term immunosuppression. . In this case, the semipermeable membrane surrounds the cells and allows oxygen, nutrients, and cell products to penetrate bilaterally while... 

Active packaging is a novel approach that can ensure food safety by removing undesirable compounds such as Oxygen, ethylene, moisture, and microbial contamination from fresh produce's environment and reducing product loss by extending shelf life. Current research on active food packaging materials focuses on using biopolymers such as carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids as alternatives to non-degradable petroleum-based packaging materials. Active nanomaterials are commonly used to impart functionality to packaging materials. However, the lack of functionality limits their industrial application.Therefore, the main objective of this work was to fabricate bioactive nanocomposite films by... 

Building complex and functional tissues and organs is very challenging. One of the challenges is building an efficient network of blood vessels that can be used to facilitate the transport of nutrients and oxygen to the host. In addition to using channels for oxygen supply, another solution is to use oxygen-carrying materials. In this study, in addition to designing and simulating scaffolds with multi-scale microchannels, calcium peroxide was used to release oxygen and eliminate hypoxia in the scaffold. Here alginate is used as the main material for scaffolding. In an attempt to build a scaffold using a bio-printer, pluronic acid was also used as a sacrificial material to create canals.... 

Mammalian cardiac tissue lacks the ability to effectively self-regenerate following severe damage. The application of external therapeutic agents with strong mechanical properties is needed to restore its function. Even though conventional therapies have several challenges and limitations, injectable hydrogels, with minimally invasive, can significantly improve cardiac tissue regeneration. Extracellular matrices are the most appropriate biomaterials for synthesizing cardiac scaffolds. The human amniotic membrane obtained from the amniotic sac is a readily available, abundant, and inexpensive candidate that has been successfully utilized for the clinical treatment of cardiac diseases.... 

The retina, a photosensitive area in the central nervous system, is delicate and intricate. It is susceptible to degenerative disorders such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), retinitis pigmentosa (RP), Stargardt disease (SD), and glaucoma. These diseases can lead to severe vision loss and ultimately irreversible blindness by causing destruction or dysfunction of different types of retinal cells. Unfortunately, there are no proven treatment strategies to cure or reverse these degenerative disorders. However, cell transplantation therapies may be an alternative to replace distorted cells and improve an individual's vision. Recent clinical outcomes show that transplanted cells in the... 

Tissue engineering is a science that tries to create new tissues by using cells, growth factors and appropriate biological materials in order to repair damaged organs and replace parts lost due to various reasons. In this research, the effect of adding mxene sheets on the oxidized alginate-gelatin hydrogel scaffold was investigated. For this purpose, mxene nanosheets were first synthesized by Max phase chemical etching and its synthesis was confirmed by X-ray diffraction spectroscoy, field emission scanning electron microscope, X-ray energy diffraction spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy. Then, in order to prepare the scaffolds, different amounts of... 

In this research, we developed a drug release system of two biocompatible and biodegradable polymers and biocompatible ceramic nanoparticles. Hydrogels of sodium alginate (SA) were crosslinked using calcium chloride. The SA hydrogels were blended with polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) and mixed with hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (HAP) to make hydrogel nanocomposites in the form of microbeads as drug carriers. Ciprofloxacin was selected as a model antibiotic drug for treatment of bone infection. It was found that SA and PVP form hydrogen bonds and are miscible at whole range of concentrations. Indeed, the SA/PVP blends may be considered as interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs). HAP nanoparticles...