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Updated: May 10, 2026

Fabrication of Large-area Free-standing Ultrathin Polymer Films
Published on: June 3, 2015
Robust and flexible free-standing films for unidirectional drug delivery
Dongdong Chen1, Jie Chen, Mingda Wu
1State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and Materials, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, PR China 130012.
Abstract:
Robust and flexible free-standing polymer films for unidirectional drug delivery are fabricated by sandwiching drug-containing polyelectrolyte multilayer films between poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) barrier and capping layers. The drug-containing films are fabricated by layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of chemically cross-linked poly(allylamine hydrochloride)-dextran (PAH-D) microgel and hyaluronic acid (HA), which can load negatively charged cancer-inhibiting drug, methotrexate (MTX). Because the PLGA barrier layer effectively blocks MTX release, MTX can be predominantly released from the PLGA capping layer of the free-standing film. This increases the efficacy of released MTX to cancer cells while minimizing its side effects on the normal tissues. We believe that the unidirectional drug delivery free-standing films can open a new avenue to design of highly efficient drug delivery systems for biomedical application.
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