Research Projects

In the proposed research, the design, synthesis and biological experiments of enzyme responsive, block-co-polypeptide based nanogel for colon specific delivery of anticancer drug is described. The incorporation of aromatic moiety at the polymer side chain will offer supramolecular cross-linking feature via π-π stacking i stabilize the nanoassemblies. The azoreductase enzyme is produced by the microbial flora present in the colon of the human intestine. Hence, azoreductase sensitive systems are useful for colon specific delivery purposes.The incorporation of azobenzene moiety at the junction of the polymer block will make it azoreductase enzyme sensitive and thus drug release will occur due to the degradation of polymer nanogel in response to azoreductase enzyme in presence of coenzyme NADPH. The polymer side chain will be functionalized with ligand for targeted drug delivery. The control polymer will be used to probe whether drug release happened indeed due to enzyme responsive degradation. Researchers believe this design can minimize two major challenges of the state of art chemotherapeutic agents such as early disassembly of nanocarrier followed by premature release of drugs and off targeting.