Complexation Phenomena in pH-Sensitive Hydrogels as Oral Protein Delivery Carriers

Kim, Bumsang
Department of Chemical Engineering, Hongik University, Seoul 121-791, Korea

Oral delivery of therapeutic peptides and proteins is one of the greatest challenges in pharmaceutical fields. When peptides and proteins are orally administered, the major problem is degradation by proteolytic enzymes and acidic environment in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In recent years, considerable research effort has been invested in using hydrogels to solve this problem.  Especially stimuli-sensitive complexation hydrogels have generated a significant interest in this field due to their unique capability to exhibit altered structures or modified conformations in response to external signals, leading to a controlled release profile. These systems have generated a wide interest in the scientific community for their broad application, from intelligent carriers for drug release to biomedical on/off switches. Here, novel pH-sensitive complexation hydrogels, the hydrogels of poly(methacrylic acid-g-ethylene glycol), were developed by free-radical photopolymerization. The swelling and release behavior of the hydrogels were investigated as a function of pH and copolymer compositions to study the feasibility of the hydrogels as carriers for oral protein delivery. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopic technique was used in order to elucidate the macroscopic pH-sensitive swelling behavior of the hydrogel with complexation phenomena of the polymer network at molecular level. The pH-responsive release behavior of insulin in the physiological pH range was also investigated from the hydrogels.

약력
1988.03 - 1992.02 연세대학교 화학공학과 공학사
1992.03 - 1994.02 연세대학교 화학공학과 공학석사
1994.01 - 1999.06 주식회사 SKC 중앙연구소 연구원
1999.08 - 2002.12 Purdue University 화학공학과 Ph.D.
2003.02 - 2004.01 Pennsylvania State University 화학공학과 Post-doc.
2004.03 - 현재     홍익대학교 화학공학과 전임강사