Development of Micropellets for Buccal Drug Delivery

Introduction: Pellets are an attractive dosage form in the gender specific and pediatric therapy, since they offer the possibility of patient adapted dosing. [...

Important Parameters in Cytotoxicity Testing of Nanoparticles

Background: The use of nano-sized materials (NMs) offers exciting new options in technical and medical applications. Adverse effects on cells and organs, however, [...

Transport Studies of Nanostructured Materials across the Buccal Mucosa

Introduction: The oral cavity acts as a complex barrier and displays the first main hindrance against uncontrolled uptake of a variety of substances. [...

European Center for Nanotoxicology – Nanoscale Materials: A New Challenge for Toxicology

Introduction: Nanotechnologies and Nanomedicine are promising fields of scientific research. [...

Surface Induced Order of Solution Processed Caffeine Needles on Silica and Muscovite Mica

In this work the orientational order of needle shaped caffeine crystallites at silica and muscovite mica surfaces is investigated by X ray diffraction experiment and optical microscopy. The investigation of thin films reveals the formation of caffeine in the anhydrous monoclinic beta polymorphic structure independent of the surface with the disclike caffeine molecules assemble in an edge on conformation. The silica surface provides isotropic properties for crystal growth which leads to a fiber texture arrangement of the needles; a majority of needles have a 010 texture with all other directions being randomly distributed. The mica surface with its highly regular surface structure induces defined textures and azimuthal order of the caffeine needles resulting in a fully defined epitaxial order. The edge on and disclike caffeine molecules align along the [100] m , [110] m , and [1 1 over bar0] m real space directions of the mica substrate and show a mirror symmetry around the [110] m The experiments on these two surfaces show that the type of surface is able to induce order during caffeine needle growt