Development and characterization of imatinib-loaded PEG-ASA polymeric micelles and co-administration with doxorubicin-loaded micelles.

Imatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor widely used in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Monotherapy with imatinib (IMA) can lead to resistance, toxicity, and related side effects. Using polymeric micelles to facilitate its targeted delivery to tumor tissues reduces systemic toxicity and helps to reduce rapid metabolism and renal clearance along with increasing drug accumulation in tumor tissue due to enhanced permeation and retention effect. COX2 plays a role in tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis, inhibition of apoptosis, and immunosuppression. Its inhibition can thus lead to increased anti-tumor activity. 5-ASA is a known anti-inflammatory COX2 inhibitor and can be conjugated with a polymer to form a prodrug-based micellar carrier to load other chemotherapeutic agents. PEG-ASA polymer (PASA) was hence synthesized and used to load imatinib to form polymeric micelles. These micelles were then characterized for their size, morphology, as well as in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor efficacy. We further developed doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded PASA micelles and tested their combination effect with co-administration of imatinib-loaded PASA micelles. Our studies demonstrated that combination of IMA- and DOX-loaded micelles showed a favorable anti-tumor efficacy in in vitro as well as in vivo studies and may represent a promising therapeutic strategy that warrants more studies in the future

Knowledge, and attitude towards human papilloma virus infection among pharmacy students in Mumbai, India

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually transmitted infection (STI) that may cause cervical cancer and other malignancies including those of the vulva, anus, vagina, penis, head and neck. In most Asian countries including India, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women. Awareness about HPV and cervical cancer, use of vaccines can be very helpful in prevention, control and early diagnosis of cervical cancer. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among students from Mumbai University, India during May - June 2017. Two hundred students were approached to participate in the study of which 142 were selected to participate (males: 54; females: 88). Pretested questionnaire was distributed and collected data was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23. Results: Participants had fair knowledge (61% average) about HPV, whereas knowledge about symptoms, prevention and spread of HPV was very poor i.e. 18%. Knowledge about HPV vaccine was 50% and 78% participants had positive attitude for HPV vaccine. Conclusions: This study showed the lacunas in the pharmacy curriculum and urgent need to create awareness of HPV among bachelor of pharmacy students from Mumbai University

Abstracts of Scientifica 2022

This book contains the abstracts of the papers presented at Scientifica 2022, Organized by the Sancheti Institute College of Physiotherapy, Pune, Maharashtra, India, held on 12–13 March 2022. This conference helps bring researchers together across the globe on one platform to help benefit the young researchers. There were six invited talks from different fields of Physiotherapy and seven panel discussions including over thirty speakers across the globe which made the conference interesting due to the diversity of topics covered during the conference. Conference Title:  Scientifica 2022Conference Date: 12–13 March 2022Conference Location: Sancheti Institute College of PhysiotherapyConference Organizer: Sancheti Institute College of Physiotherapy, Pune, Maharashtra, Indi