@article {20262, title = {Electro-responsive drug delivery from melanin nanoparticles}, journal = {1st Discoveries Forum on Regenerative and Precision Medicine}, year = {2019}, month = {2019-09-25 00:00:00}, address = {Braga}, abstract = {

Melanin is a biopolymer that excels for its biocompatibility and biodegradability properties which can act as a nanocarrier or agent itself to be used in diverse biomedical applications.

Targeted and controlled drug delivery strategies allow the release of a certain amount of a drug at a specific time and place. Since we hypothesize that the drug release profile can be controlled by applying an external electrical current as stimuli, {\textquotedblleft}smart materials{\textquotedblright}, such as inherently conductive polymers can be an easy approach to modulate the release profile of a drug. These systems can improve the lack of efficiency and stability of current therapies.

Herein, we report a simple method to develop a drug delivery system using functionalized melanin nanoparticles with electro-responsive polymers, polydopamine and polypyrrole, to precisely control the release profile of hydrophobic and hydrophilic model drugs such as dexamethasone and methylene blue, respectively.\ Melanin nanoparticles evidenced a spherical shape with a particle size around 376.77 {\textpm} 62.05 nm and a polydispersity index of 0.26 {\textpm} 0.09. The deposition of the polymers was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The incorporation efficiency of the drugs was achieved with 94.45 {\textpm} 0.63\% and 99.14 {\textpm} 0.59\% for dexamethasone and methylene blue, respectively.

}, keywords = {Drug Delivery System, melanin, Nanoparticles}, author = {Caldas, M. and Rebelo, R. and Tiago, S. H. and Reis, R. L. and Correlo, V. M.} }