This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Children and seniors who have difficulty chewing and swallowing conventional tablets may have an easier way to find pain relief. Cornell researchers have developed an ultrafast-dissolving nanofiber film that can deliver a cocktail of three drugs so quickly and effectively that 90% of the formulation is released in less than two seconds.
The findings were reported in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics. The project was led by Tamer Uyar, associate professor of fiber science in human-centered design in the College of Human Ecology; the lead author is former postdoctoral researcher Asli Celebioglu. As a fiber scientist, Uyar's work spans textiles, filtration, food packaging, agriculture and health care.
That wide range is due to the outsize utility of nanofibers, which are 1,000 times smaller than a single human hair and therefore have an enormous surface area, allowing them to interact more easily with their surroundings. When it came to selecting the right kind of nanofiber, the researchers skipped the obvious options favored by the pharmaceutical industry—such as edible polymers—and opted instead for cyclodextrin (hydroxypropyl-β cyclodextrin), a cyclic oligosaccharide produced from starch. Uyar's lab previously developed a cyclodextrin-based fibrous membrane that removed approximately 90% of the microplastic triclosan from water.
"There are many drug formulations, but they typically are not water-soluble," Uyar said. "But the fiber matrix of cyclodextrin helps increase the water solubility and bioavailability of the drugs while also masking their bad taste." The nanofiber film is produced through a process called electrospinning, by which an electric field draws ultrathin fibers from a liquid, in this case water. Because the process is commercially available, the approach is highly scalable.
"People usually use organic solvents to dissolve and process these drugs. But in our case, we only use water in this system, with the cyclodextrin and the drug itself," Uyar said. "So it's a very clean and green process." Initially, the researchers focused on a single-drug formulation, but they soon embraced the challenge of incorporating three: acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), paracetamol and caffeine.
That combination of drugs and their respective ratios matches that of the commercial painkiller Excedrin, commonly used to treat headaches and migraines. But first, Celebioglu and doctoral student Mahmoud Aboelkheir, a co-author on the paper, worked to understand the complexation and interactions between the three drugs and cyclodextrin. The subsequent film, which resembles a breath strip, is the first nanofiber system that can release a triple-drug combination.
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