Smart Polymers and their Applications: A Review

Smart polymers are materials that respond to small external stimuli. These are also referred as stimuli responsive materials or intelligent materials. Smart polymers that can exhibit stimuli-sensitive properties are becoming important in many commercial applications. These polymers can change shape, strength and pore size based on external factors such as temperature, pH and stress. The stimuli include salt, UV irradiation, temperature, pH, magnetic or electric field, ionic factors etc. Smart polymers are very promising applicants in drug delivery, tissue engineering, cell culture, gene carriers, textile engineering, oil recovery, radioactive wastage and protein purification. The study is focused on the entire features of smart polymers and their most recent and relevant applications. Water soluble polymers with tunable lower critical solution temperature (LCST) are of increasing interest for biological applications such as cell patterning, smart drug release, DNA sequencing etc.

A Review on Fast Dissolving Tablet

Oral route is presently the gold standard in the pharmaceutical industry where it is regarded as the safest, most economical and most convenient method of drug delivery resulting in highest patient compliance. Over the past three decades, orally disintegrating tablets (FDTs) have gained considerable attention due to patient compliance. Usually, elderly people experience difficulty in swallowing the conventional dosage forms like tablets, capsules, solutions and suspensions because of tremors of extremities and dysphagia. In some cases such as motion sickness, sudden episodes of allergic attack or coughing, and an unavailability of water, swallowing conventional tablets may be difficult. One such problem can be solved in the novel drug delivery system by formulating “Fast dissolving tablets” (FDTs) which disintegrates or dissolves rapidly without water within few seconds in the mouth due to the action of superdisintegrant or maximizing pore structure in the formulation. The review describes the various formulation aspects, superdisintegrants employed and technologies developed for FDTs, along with various excipients, evaluation tests, marketed formulation and drugs used in this research area.

Film Forming Gels: A Review

Film forming gels are a novel approach in this area that might present at an alternative to the conventional dosage form used on the skin , such as ointments , creams , gels or patches. The polymeric solution is applied to the skin as a liquid and forms an alomost invisible film in situ by solvent evaporation. transdermal drug delivery system and dermal drug delivery system can provide some desirable performance over conventional pharmaceutical dosage formulations, such as avoiding gut and hepatic first-pass metabolism, improving drug bioavailability, reducing dose frequency and stabilizing drug delivery profile. The aim of this review was to search for alternative to conventional forms in order to reduce skin irritation, improve skin adhesion properties, enhance the drug release and increase the patient acceptability from an aesthetic perspective. Because of their peculiar rheological behavior, polymeric gels are beneficial in terms of ease of preparation, ease of application, adhesion to the application surface and ability to deliver a wide variety of drugs.

A Review on Medicinal Plants Biodiversity of Vijayanagar Forest, Gujarat, India

India is endowed with varying biogeography and physico-environment that encompasses a range of biodiversity with variation and endemism. Indian forests are characterised by human inhabitation from time immemorial.Gujarat situated at the western part of India is characterised by the assemblage of sea, lofty Aravallis, Vindhyas, Satpura range and Thar desert giving a rich diversity of species, habitat and ecosystems. These eosystems despite its semi arid and arid climate encompasses unique and shelter some of the world’s threatened species of plants and animals. They have rich fauna and diverse flora of medicinal herbs that are traditionally used by the healers. Vijaynagar Polo forest of Himmatnagar in Sabarkantha district is one of such area that contains fascinating flora and fauna. It is a dry deciduous forest with teak trees and various medicinal plants that are seasonal. This paper describes the scope of exploration of the forest for medicinal plants biodiversity in addition to the eco tourism that is practiced there for the rich fauna and flora of river side with most ancient historical sites.

Oxidative Stress Parameters as A Marker From Several Pathological Conditions in Cervical Mucus

The objectives of this study were to measure several oxidative stress parameters in cervical mucous with several pathological conditions. The parameters are myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and Advanced Oxidation Protein Products (AOPPs) levels. Seventy-six women with aged 20-45 years, who attend to Indonesian Cancer Association, Jakarta, Indonesia were enrolled in the study. Cervical mucus was taken from each patient, and after that, pap smear procedure is performed to determine the condition of each patient's cervix. According to the results of the pap smear, there are three cervical conditions, such as normal, mild chronic specific infection, chronic non-specific infection, and atypical cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS). A significant increase in MPO activity, H2O2, and AOPPs levels were observed in all group of patients, compared to normal patients. In conclusion, oxidative stress was involved in several pathological conditions in the uterine cervix, and the parameters measured in this study may be used as a marker in those conditions.

Niosomes: An Update

Over decades researchers are striving to use the drugs in an efficient manner to treat various diseases. The efficient use can be explained as reduced dose, reduced side effects, reduced dosage frequency, greater patient compliance and maximum concentration of the drug at the site of action so as to reduce the undue exposure to the entire body. The article focuses on various advantages of vesicular systems (niosomes) to develop the effective delivery system to achieve maximum effective concentration. Niosomes, nonionic surfactant vesicles with lamellar structure which may be unilamellar and multilamellar serve to be efficient in providing these required advantages. The bilayer structure of niosomes being amphiphillic in nature can be used to deliver hydrophilic drugs in its aqueous core and lipophilic drugs in the bilayer made up of surfactants. Various additives in niosomes include nonionic surfactant as film forming agent, cholesterol as stabilizing and rigidizing agent for the bilayer and various charge inducers which develop a charge on the surface of niosomes and stabilize the prepared formulation by the resulting repulsive forces. This article also comprises of various breakthroughs in niosomal delivery of drugs representing various classes. On the basis of above information, the niosomes have been thoroughly exploited for the drug delivery system and still offer scope for research on various drugs for their maximum therapeutic utilization in management and treatment of various dreadful diseases.

Therapeutic Potential of Vanda roxburghii Roxb.: A Review

Orchids are the largest and the most diverse group among the angiosperms. They are cultivated for beautiful flowers. They exhibit incredible range of diversity in size, shape and color of their flowers. These plants have been well known for their economic importance but less for their medicinal value. Many orchids have been used as drugs in Ayurveda for various ailments. The genus Vanda from this family includes a medicinal epiphytic plant Vanda roxburghii commonly called as Rasna which is a perennial orchid. The plant has been used traditionally for many ailments. The plant has been subjected to a number of biological activities and has given fruitful results. Vanda roxburghii has been found to be useful as aphrodisiac, antibacterial, antifungal, antiulcer, anticonvulsant, antioxidant agent. The plant has also been tested for hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, wound healing, antinociceptive, analgesic and antidiabetic activity. The present communication deals with the work done on biological activities of this important medicinal plant.

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Chalconyl Incorporated Schiff’s Bases of Sulphonamides

A series of of Chalconyl Incorporated Schiff’s Bases of Sulphonamides was synthesized by reacting substituted chalcone derivatives with Sulphacetamide sodium in methanol. All the title compounds synthesized (2a-2d) were tested for antibacterial and antifungal activity using E. coli, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus, S. pyogenus and C. albicans, A. niger and A. clavatus respectively as microbial strains and Sulphacetamide sodium as standard. The compound 2d showed significant antibacterial activity and 2a showed moderate antifungal activity as compared with Sulphacetamide Sodium.

Detection of Microaneurysms in Fundus Images using ELM Classifier

The main objective of this paper is to detect the microaneurysms which is the sign and symptom for the retinal disease Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). In this work, the input image is preprocessed and then cross sectional scanning is applied for peak detection and property measurement. Feature set from the processed images is extracted and ELM classifier is used for MA detection. The experimental results show the proposed system provides better results compared to existing system.

Embelin: A potential Benzoquinone

Embelin is a benzoquinone compound, present mainly in Embelia species. Embelin is also reported in Lysimachia punctate, Ardisia humilis, Rapanea umbellate, Cannarus richiei, Myrsine Africana and Myrsine capitellata. Embelin has demonstrated wide range of pharmacological activities including; antidepressant, anticancer, antifertility, antidiabetic, antioxidant and analgesic. Embelin shown other activities also such as antihyperlipidemic, antifungal, antihyperhomocysteinemic, anthelminthic, anticonvulsant, antibacterial, hepatoprotective, wound healing and anxiolytic activity. Recent studies, have thrown light on anti-arthritis and antiulcer activities of the benzoquinone. The present review, discusses pharmacological investigations on embelin, with potential for drug-development.