Recently, electrospinning (ES) of fibers has been shown to be an attractive strategy for drug delivery. One of the main features of ES is that a wide variety of drugs can be loaded into the fibers to improve their bioavailability, to enhance dissolution, or to achieve controlled release. Besides, ES is a continuous technology with low energy consumption, which can make it a very economic production alternative to the widely used freeze drying and spray drying. However, the low production rate of laboratory‐scaled ES has limited the industrial application of the technology so far. This article covers the various ES technologies developed for scaled‐up fiber production with an emphasis on pharmaceutically relevant examples. The methods used for increasing the productivity are complied, which is followed by a review of specific examples from literature where these technologies are utilized to produce oral drug delivery systems. The different technologies are compared in terms of their basic principles, advantages, and limitations. Finally, the different downstream processing options to prepare tablets or capsules containing the electrospun drug are covered as well.
This article is categorized under:
Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Emerging Technologies
Raman spectroscopy as a process analytical technology tool was implemented for the monitoring and control of ethanol fermentation carried out with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The need for the optimization of bioprocesses such as ethanol production, to increase product yield, enhanced the development of control strategies. The control system developed by the authors utilized noninvasive Raman measurements to avoid possible sterilization problems. Real‐time data analysis was applied using partial least squares regression (PLS) method. With the aid of spectral pretreatment and multivariate data analysis, the monitoring of glucose and ethanol concentration was successful during yeast fermentation with the prediction error of 4.42 g/L for glucose and 2.40 g/L for ethanol. By Raman spectroscopy‐based feedback control, the glucose concentration was maintained at 100 g/L by the automatic feeding of concentrated glucose solution. The control of glucose concentration during fed‐batch fermentation resulted in increased ethanol production. Ethanol yield of 86% was achieved compared to the batch fermentation when 75% yield was obtained. The results show that the use of Raman spectroscopy for the monitoring and control of yeast fermentation is a promising way to enhance process understanding and achieve consistently high production yield.
An innovative, Raman spectroscopy‐based monitoring and control system is introduced in this paper for designing dynamic feeding strategies that allow the maintenance of key cellular nutrients at an ideal level in Chinese hamster ovary cell culture. The Partial Least Squares calibration models built for glucose, lactate and 16 (out of 20) individual amino acids had very good predictive power with low root mean square errors values and high square correlation coefficients. The developed models used for real‐time measurement of nutrient and by‐product concentrations allowed us to gain better insight into the metabolic behavior and nutritional consumption of cells. To establish a more beneficial nutritional environment for the cells, two types of dynamic feeding strategies were used to control the delivery of two‐part multi‐component feed media according to the prediction of Raman models (glucose or arginine). As a result, instead of high fluctuations, the nutrients (glucose together with amino acids) were maintained at the desired level providing a more balanced environment for the cells. Moreover, the use of amino acid‐based feeding control enabled to prevent the excessive nutrient replenishment and was economically beneficial by significantly reducing the amount of supplied feed medium compared to the glucose‐based dynamic fed culture.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.