in recent years, chitosan nanoparticles have been studied widely for protein delivery. in this study, hemiscorpius lepturus (hl) venom was encapsulated in chitosan nanoparticles. the aim of the present work was to carry out a systematic study for preparing biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles for loading hl scorpion venom and to evaluate their potential as an antigen delivery system. i...

In this review, the development of low-molecular-weight gelators and polymer-based gelators is described. The driving forces for physical gelation are non-covalent bonds, such as hydrogen bonds, electrostatic interactions, van der Waals interactions and p–p interactions. When gelation occurs, the gelator molecules self-assemble into macromolecule-like aggregates through non-covalent intermolecu...

We compare the slow dynamics of irreversible gels, colloidal gels, glasses and spin glasses by analyzing the behavior of the so called non-linear dynamical susceptibility, a quantity usually introduced to quantitatively characterize the dynamical heterogeneities. In glasses this quantity typically grows with the time, reaches a maximum and then decreases at large time, due to the transient natu...

The aggregation of shape-persistent macrocycles with an empty cavity, an undecyldiether strand and a tetraethylene glycol strand leads in all cases to a macroscopic gelation of the solvent. However, the gelation temperatures are fine-tuned by the intraannular substituents.

high purity fluorapatite (FA) with rod-like and spherical-like morphology was synthesized via sol-gel method. Chemical characterization of FA powders was done by XRD and FTIR analyses. Crystallite samples were calculated using Scherer method. Morphology of FA powders was investigated with TEM and SEM images. The results revealed that increasing the time of hydrolysis of phosphate sols significa...

Colloidal gelation has been extensively studied for the case of purely attractive systems, but little is understood about how colloidal gelation is affected by the presence of repulsive interactions. Here we demonstrate the gelation of a binary system of oppositely charged colloids, in which repulsive interactions compete with attractive interactions. We observe that gelation is controlled by v...

We study dilute aqueous solutions of charged disklike mineral particles (laponite) by a combination of static light scattering (SLS) and small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS). Laponite solutions are known to form gels above a certain critical concentration that must be described as nonequilibrium states. Here we focus on the investigation by SLS and SAXS at concentrations below gelation (c<0.016 ...

Covalently-crosslinked hydrogels are commonly used as 3D matrices for cell culture and transplantation. However, the crosslinking chemistries used to prepare these gels generally cross-react with functional groups present on the cell surface, potentially leading to cytotoxicity and other undesired effects. Bio-orthogonal chemistries have been developed that do not react with biologically releva...

Hydrophobic end-modulated l-phenylalanine-containing triethylene glycol monomethyl ether tagged neutral hydrogelators (1-4) are developed. Investigations determine the gelators' structure-dependent inclusion of carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) in the self-assembled fibrillar network (SAFIN). The gelators (1, 3, and 4) can immobilize water and aqueous buffer (pH 3-7) with a minimum gelator concentrat...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Rheological evaluation of thermoreversible mucoadhesive nasal gel of zolmitriptan is done to determine the steady shear behaviour and gelation temperature. The thermoreversible mucoadhesive polymers are sucessesfully used to increase the contact time of the therapeutic compound in the nasal cavity as well as they cause enhancement in permeation of drug through the nasa...