RECENT UPDATE ON ORAL FILMS: A BENCH TO MARKET POTENTIAL

Oral films are gaining a lot of attention as a substitute approach to the conventional dosage form. Over the past few years, many of the pharmaceutical scientists throughout the world are focusing their research on oral films, trying to see the sights of oral films as a novel drug delivery system. The oral films are convenient to swallow for geriatric and pediatric patients, are self-administrable, used for systemic and local action and rapid release of a drug, which makes it an excellent system of drug delivery. This review article mainly discusses the manufacturing aspects of films and their characterization, applications and the constraints in the development of oral films along with highlights of market potential

Unraveling Dengue Dynamics: In-Depth Epidemiological and Entomological Analyses in Bengaluru, India

In view of the increased number of detected dengue cases in Bengaluru, a request for situation analysis was received from local health authorities in the selected area. The study included epidemiological and entomological assessments to understand the same. The immature forms collected were allowed to emerge, pooled, and processed for vector incrimination. In the surveyed population (347), 20 (5.8%) reported fever cases and 12 (3.5%) were confirmed as dengue cases among the 102 families. Stegomyia indices were high. Vector incrimination studies revealed pools positive for the presence of dengue virus in flower pots, fridge trays, plastic barrels, and rubber tires habitats. This study highlights the increased risk of dengue fever incidence in communities wherepoor intra and peri-domestic sanitation practices are prevailing and recommendsregular entomological surveillance of denguevirus in its vector population.

Genomic Interventions for Biofortification of Food Crops

Micronutrient deficiencies are reported to affect more than two billion people worldwide. Importantly, people inhabiting rural and semi-urban areas are more vulnerable to these nutritional disorders. In view of the inadequacy of nutrition-specific approaches that rely on changing the food-consumption behaviour, nutrition-sensitive interventions like crop biofortification offer sustainable means to address the problem of malnutrition worldwide. Biofortification enhances nutrient density in crop plants during plant growth through genetic or agronomic practices. Traditional plant breeding techniques and genetic engineering approaches are key to crop biofortification. Here, we summarize recent advances in genomics that have contributed towards the progress of crop biofortification. Rapidly evolving technologies like high-density genotyping assays have accelerated harnessing gains associated with natural variation of mineral contents available in crop wild relatives and landraces. The genetic nature of the mineral composition is being resolved, thus furthering the understanding of trait architecture. Conventional QTL mapping techniques have made significant contribution towards this end. New molecular breeding techniques like genome-wide association study (GWAS) and genomic selection (GS) are opening new avenues for capturing the maximum variation for elemental content, majorly explained by small-effect QTL. The potential of GS in this respect is enhanced several fold with the increasing availability of rapid generation advancement systems and high-throughput elemental profiling platforms. Evidences from latest research involving cutting-edge omics techniques including metabolomics help better elucidate nutrient metabolism in plants. Increasing the efficiency of biofortification breeding could enhance the rate of delivery of nutritionally rich cultivars of food crops, which will be easily accessible to a larger segment of nutrient-deficient people in the most cost-efficient way

Optimization of Microalgae Photosynthetic Metabolism to Close the Gap with Potential Productivity

Microalgae metabolism is powered only by sustainable energy and carbon sources, representing a valuable alternative to develop clean industrial processes. Moreover, this group of unicellular photosynthetic microorganisms shows high versatility, including species from different ecological niches which evolved a variety of pathways to synthesize a wide spectrum of bioactive compounds. However, sophisticated industrial cultivation systems are needed to control the stability of the production process during intensive cultivation. This artificial environment is far different from the ecological niches that shaped these organisms, limiting photon-to-biomass conversion efficiency (PBCE) to values far below those achieved at the lab scale. Moreover, large-scale cultivation has high energetic and operational costs due to initial investment and maintenance, that current PBCE values cannot compensate for, preventing commercial feasibility. Tuning microalgae photosynthetic metabolism represents an unavoidable challenge to improve PBCE and meet the theoretical potential of these organisms