Description : | Bacterial cellulose has emerged as an important biopolymer havingmultifarious applications in various fields. It has proven to be the most viablealternative to plant cellulose. It is very advantageous to use bacterial celluloseinstead of plant cellulose for many reasons as its has no hemicelluloses andlignin. It has better properties as compared to plant cellulose and the productsmanufactured from bacterial cellulose are of superior quality having moredurability and efficiency. Also, using bacterial cellulose is more eco friendly,as the need for plant cellulose results in depletion of forest resources which inreturn increases the danger of pollution.Bacterial cellulose (BC), is a highly pure cellulose (devoid ofhemicelluloses and lignin) produced by bacteria. It has a high degree ofcrystallinity, polymerization, tensile strength and tear resistance, andhydrophobicity. These unique properties confer upon it the ability to be usedfor a multitude of applications in many industries particularly in the biomedicalarea. It can be used as wound dressing or bandage for healing wounds,making artificial skin, artificial vessels etc. Bacterial cellulose membrane canheal the wound much faster and efficiently than conventionally used wounddressings. The unique physical and mechanical properties of BC, arising fromits tridimensional and branched nano and micro-fibrillar structure, as well asbiocompatibility triggered the interest to produce BC membranes that can beused for drug loading and controlled release by making Trans dermalpatches. Transdermal patches comprise a method of delivering medicationthrough the skin in a non-invasive manner. The patch contains the desiredmedication (i.e topical antibiotics like antibacterial, antifungal etc.) and isdesigned in such a way that the medication permeates the skin in a controlledfashion thus attaining more steady levels of the drug in the body.Realizing the importance of bacterial cellulose and its industrial impact, thisproject has been envisaged. We are successfully able to produce bacterialcellulose from after an intensive screening. The production of bacterialcellulose was optimized in a cost effective manner. The production will alsofocus on the development of biocellulose membranes with desired thinness.Process engineering including downstream processing, harvesting,purification of biocellulose membrane and subsequent impregnation of topicalantibiotics in the biocellulose membranes was carried out for the developmentof dermal patches. Stability Studies of the antibiotics impregnationbiocellulose membranes, It transdermal PK and Drug release studies on thedermal patches was carried out to check the efficacy of the produced biomembranes. Invivo efficacy of the dermal patches containing topicalantibiotics will also be attempted for to achieve and develop a commerciallyviable process of BC based transdermal patches. |