Genome sequencing projects have revealed thousands of suspected genes, challenging researchers to develop efficient large-scale functional analysis methodologies. Determining the function of a gene product generally requires a means to alter its function. Genetically tractable model organisms have been widely exploited for the isolation and characterization of activating and inactivating mutati...

Healthcare expenditure in the United States has grown and will continue to increase. The increasing healthcare expenditure is to reduce real income as well as to diminish total utility and increase financial stresses. This study argues that the most critical factor that increases healthcare expenditures during last 50 years has been the advent, adoption and diffusion of new medical technologies...

These are the type of controlled drug delivery systems, which release the drug in continuous manner by both dissolution controlled as well as diffusion controlled mechanisms. To control the release of the drugs, which are having different solubility properties, the drug is dispersed in swellable hydrophilic substances, an insoluble matrix of rigid non swellable hydrophobic materials or plastic ...

The potential of enzyme inhibition of a drug is frequently quantified in terms of IC(50) values. Although this is a suitable quantity for reversible inhibitors, concerns arise when dealing with irreversible or mechanism-based inhibitors (MBIs). IC(50) values of MBIs are time dependent, causing serious problems when aiming at ranking different compounds with respect to their inhibitory potential...

Since 1960 when the history of modern hydrogels began significant progress has been made in the field of controlled drug delivery. In particular, recent advances in the so-called smart hydrogels have made it possible to design highly sophisticated formulations, e.g., self-regulated drug delivery systems. Despite intensive efforts, clinical applications of smart hydrogels have been limited. Smar...

Copyright © 2010 Frederick Furness Publishing 14 Oral delivery continues to be the most popular route of administration due to its versatility, ease of administration and probably most importantly patient compliance. In a recent New England Healthcare Institute report, the cost of non-compliance in the US alone was estimated to be as much as $290 billion, or 13% of total annual health care expe...

Microneedles were first conceptualized for drug delivery many decades ago, overcoming the shortages and preserving the advantages of hypodermic needle and conventional transdermal drug-delivery systems to some extent. Dissolving and biodegradable microneedle technologies have been used for transdermal sustained deliveries of different drugs and vaccines. This review describes microneedle geomet...

Multifunctional abietane-based polymer nanogels were fabricated for label-free cell imaging and drug delivery. The self-fluorescent abietane as the framework of carriers enables the imaging without the need for external fluorescent probes, while abietane-based nanogels exhibit low in vitro cytotoxicity.

Information processing at the molecular level is coming of age. Since the first molecular AND gate was proposed about 20 years ago, the molecular interpretation of binary logic has become vastly more sophisticated and complex. However, the field is also at a crossroads. While cleverly designed molecular building blocks are abundant, difficult questions remain. How can molecular components be fl...