Program and the Book of abstracts / Eighteenth Young Researchers' Conference Materials Sciences and Engineering, December 4-6, 2019, Belgrade, Serbia

Young Researchers' meetings are held annually late in December since 2002 and they are organized by the Materials Research Society of Serbia. Originally conceived as seminars, since 2007 these meetings were transformed into conferences. The previous eleven meetings featured presentations based on the research of various young scientists from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, Brazil, Germany, United States of America, China, Poland, Belgium, Spain, Romania, United Kingdom, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Russia, Canada, etc. At the Conference, young researchers, students of doctoral, master and undergraduate studies, are given the opportunity to make an overview of their research into materials science and engineering through oral and poster presentations. As for the scientific content of the conference, we have given full priority to research topics that are currently considered as being on the frontier of the field. Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Synthesis and Engineering of Biomaterials, Application of Biomaterials, Theoretical Modeling of Materials and Advanced Methods for Synthesis and Processing present only some of those exciting topics that will be given the central stage and most attention during this meeting. The 18th Young Researchers' Conference Materials Science and Engineering was held in Belgrade, Serbia on December 4-6, 2019, Belgrade, Serbia. It was organized by the Materials Research Society of Serbia and Institute of Technical Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Pharmaceutical Particulates and Membranes for Delivery of Drugs and Bioactive Molecules

This book is a collection of papers published in the Special Issue of Pharmaceutics, entitled "Pharmaceutical Particulates and Membranes for Delivery of Drugs and Bioactive Molecules". A drug release profile is a consequential factor for nanoparticle application, directly related to drug stability and therapeutic results, as well as formulation development. Pharmaceutical particulates of different sizes and shapes (e.g., liposomes, oil-in-water emulsions, polymeric nano- and microspheres, metallic nanoparticles (NPs) such as gold, silver and iron oxide crystals, and core-shell hybrid NPs) offer many diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Membranes are also extensively utilized in many applications. They are especially beneficial to the distribution of macromolecular drugs and biopharmaceutical drugs (peptides, proteins, antibodies, oligonucleotides, plasmids, and viruses) with physicochemical and pharmacokinetic vulnerability. The delivery of drugs and bioactive molecules using particulates and membranes has gained a great deal of attention for various applications, such as the treatment of secondary infections, cancer treatment, skin regeneration, orthopaedic applications, and antimicrobial drug delivery. In addition, several production techniques have been utilized for the fabrication of particulates and membranes in the last decade, which include lyophilisation, micro-emulsion, nano-spray dryer, nano-electrospinning, slip casting and 3D printers. Therefore, pharmaceutical particulates and membranes possess excellent prospects to deliver drugs and bioactive molecules with the potential to improve new delivery strategies like sustained and controlled release

Fatty acids and monoglycerides as novel prophylaxis against gonococcal ophthalmia neonatorum

Neonates born to mothers with an active gonorrhoea infection can develop serious sight threatening eye infections. The causative agent, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, is passed to the neonate during birth, and infects the eyes of the neonate. The condition, ophthalmia neonatorum, develops 0-14 days after birth and initially presents as a painful inflammation of the eye with yellowish purulent discharge from one or both eyes. One preventative action used by some countries is the use of an ophthalmic prophylaxis which is usually an ophthalmic ointment which contains an antibiotic. This its self can cause chemical conjunctivitis. This study evaluates the potential to use a fatty acid or fatty acid derivative as the active antimicrobial agent in an ophthalmic prophylaxis. A panel of thirty-seven initial candidates were screened for anti-gonococcal properties. Seven of this panel were selected and tested against for ocular irritation potential using in vitro models and anti-gonococcal properties tested further in simulated tear fluid. Finally a single candidate, monocaprin, was selected as the main drug candidate. Ophthalmic formulations of liquid and semi-solid dosage forms were made and evaluated. Liquid dosage forms performed the best in in vitro tested and were further evaluated in cell culture and explanted models. The cell culture model suggested that monocaprin could be used to prevent infection 90 minutes after the cell were inoculated with the bacteria. An explanted corneal infection model was used to assess the potential formulations. It was shown that the anti-gonococcal properties of the drug candidate were inhibited on the ocular surface but this this could be countered by increasing the amount of monocaprin in the formulation. The formulations containing 0.188 % and 0.25 % (w/w) monocaprin were in some cases able to totally clear inoculations of higher cell numbers on the surface of the eye. Passage on agar plates containing monocaprin showed that increasing resistance due to genomic mutation is not likely and that existing mechanisms of fatty acid resistance did not give cross-resistance to monocaprin. However, duplicate samples passaged on monocaprin both acquired identical mutations in the dksA gene which may confer a small decrease in susceptibility. Also, work done on the processing of natural sources of fatty acids showed that treatment of coconut oil by use of a purified lipase or a lipase secreting yeast produced powerful anti-gonococcal substances. This could has the potential to be used in developing nations treat gonococcal and other bacterial infection. Overall, the work in thesis demonstrates that there is potential in the use a fatty acid or fatty acid derivative, most likely monocaprin, to be used as the active antimicrobial agent in an ophthalmic prophylaxis but more evaluation in terms of in vivo testing is required to demonstrate that the higher levels of monocaprin do not cause irritation to the eye