Characterization of an alginate-based drug delivery system for neurological applications

This paper presents a drug delivery system based on alginate gels. The biocompatibility, the flexibility in size and shape, and the ability to entrap biomolecules make alginate-based systems ideal for in vivo drug delivery. Specifically, by considering the target application of neural regeneration and neuroprotection, the issue of biocompatibility as well as morphologic compatibility (e.g. shape and size of an implant) have to be addressed. The authors describe various types of alginate gels; fibers of cylindrical shape resulted the best choice in terms of simplicity of realization, insertion and release effectiveness, as shown by preliminary in vivo assays. Consequently, fibers release is tested in vitro and theoretically modelled, in order to obtain mathematical correlations between the release kinetics and key parameters affecting the realization procedure.