PhD defence
Polymer‐ and Hybrid‐Based Biomaterials for delivering biotherapeutic molecules in bone and cartilage tissue
- J. Garcia Couce
- Date
- Thursday 20 October 2022
- Time
- Location
-
Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden
Supervisor(s)
- Prof. B.P.F. Lelieveldt
Summary
Diseases and injuries related to bone and cartilage severely affect the function of the musculoskeletal system. They affect the life quality of patients and make them unable to move. The peculiarities of bone and cartilage structures mean that the therapeutic and surgical treatments that have been developed till date have a lot of disadvantages and limitations. In pharmacological treatments, the concentrations of drugs required to obtain the desired biological response in affected areas are sometimes insufficient and systemic administration requires frequent administration, which can cause toxicity. Consequently, the development of new strategies for administering drugs that favor localized delivery is very important to achieve increasingly better treatments.
The design and preparation of platforms for this purpose is a constant challenge, and for this reason three types of matrices were designed and prepared in the thesis. The drugs encapsulated in these matrices were cefazolin sodium, betamethasone, dexamethasone sodium phosphate, and Etanercept (anti-TNF-α drug). We were able to show that our matrices modified the release of the incorporated molecules and the composition of the prepared materials played an important role in the kinetics of the release process. Physicochemical characterizations were carried out on all the materials, obtaining that in each case the morphology varied once modifications in the matrix composition had been introduced. Biological studies in vitro and in vivo showed the cytocompatibility of the materials and also the ability to help repair damaged cartilage.
PhD dissertations
Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.
Press enquiries (journalists only)
General information
Beadle's Office
pedel@bb.leidenuniv.nl
+31 71 527 7211