Reconstituted collagen hydrogels are often used for in vitro studies of cell-matrix interaction and as scaffolds for tissue engineering. Understanding the mechanical and transport behaviours of collagen hydrogels is therefore extremely important, albeit difficult due to their very high water content (typically >99.5%). In the present study the mechanical behaviour of collagen hydrogels in confi...

Poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone)-kappa-carrageenan hydrogels (PVP-KC) were prepared by irradiating the mixtures of aqueous solutions of PVP, KC, potassium chloride, and poly(ethylene glycol) by gamma-rays at different doses. Their preliminary laboratory tests were evaluated to identify their usability in wound dressing applications. For investigation of the effect of components on the gelation of PV...

Hydrogels made of glucose oxidase-containing graft copolymers of dimethyl aminoethyl methacrylate and ethylene glycol, or glucose oxidase-containing P(DMAEMg-EG) copolymers, have been shown to deliver insulin upon exposure to glucose. The glucose oxidase reacts with glucose to form gluconic acid. The production of gluconic acid decreases the pH, which results in the swelling of the hydrogel com...

Hybrid polymeric networks composed of polyacrylamide and chitosan were developed to determine their swelling and ascorbic acid delivery kinetics at various chitosan concentrations. The hybrid acrylamide/chitosan hydrogels were synthesized in aqueous itaconic acid solution (1% w/w). Young’s modulus was also evaluated for the hydrogels, and the results were correlated with the swelling properties...

In order to utilize the psyllium husk, a medicinally important natural polysaccharide, for developing the novel hydrogels meant for the controlled drug delivery devices, we have prepared psyllium and polyacrylamide based polymeric networks by using N,N 0-methylenebisacrylamide (N,N-MBAAm) as crosslinker. The polymeric networks thus formed were characterized with scanning electron micrography (S...

To explore the potential role of polymers in the development of drug-delivery systems, this study investigated the use of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), acrylic acid (AA) and N' N'-methylenebis-acrylamide (MBA) in the synthesis of hydrogels for controlled drug delivery of acyclovir (ACV). Different proportions of β-CD, CMC, AA and MBA were blended with each other to fabri...