Sol-gel phosphate-based glass for drug delivery applications

Development of controlled, targeted drug delivery systems represents one of the frontier areas of biomaterials science, where a multidisciplinary approach is of direct benefit to human healthcare. We demonstrate herein the potential of sol-gel derived phosphate-based glass for use in drug delivery applications. Our low-temperature sol-gel synthesis of phosphate-based glasses has made it possible to incorporate relatively unstable functional molecules for controlled release. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by incorporating the chemotherapy agent cisplatin in a CaO-Na2O-P2O5 glass. X-ray absorption spectroscopy is used to show that the chlorine ligands of cisplatin undergo exchange with oxygen during the synthesis, consistent with binding to the phosphate groups of the sol-gel. UV-visible spectroscopy reveals the subsequent release of cisplatin into an aqueous medium.