IIT Guwahati develops liquid marbles with nano clay for controlled drug delivery

NEW DELHI: The Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) has developed liquid marbles using nano clay that can be pre-programme for controlled drug delivery. The research team on this research study was led by IITG, department of chemistry, associate professor, Uttam Manna.

The research study was published in a journal Advanced Functional Materials. The paper was co-authored by Nishanta Barman, Arpita Shome, Saurav Kumar, Priyam Mondal, Karan Jain, Mizuki Tenjimbayashi and Uttam Manna. This project was funded by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) and and the Department of Biotechnology.

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IIT Guwahati used the liquid marbles approach for the controlled release of drugs and programmed chemical reaction. The team engineered liquid marbles to have a ‘time bomb’ type release effect and to carry out a spontaneous chemical reaction.

Explaining the research challenge, Uttam Manna said, “Release of drugs from a liquid marble in response to a stimulus for instance light, temperature, electricity has been reported earlier. But the time-programmed release was not yet achieved. We have chemically modified the lifetime of a floating liquid marble on a water pool.”

Explaining further, Uttam Manna said, “The surface modifications on the nano clay changed the time taken for the liquid marble to break and release its contents when put in a pool of water. We were able to control the timing of the release of the content from seconds to hours by changing the nature of the surface groups. This is the time bomb type collapse of LMs.”