Injectable Smart Sponge For Controlled Drug Delivery: An NCSU Initative

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 347 million people worldwide have diabetes. Patients have been using blood glucose monitoring devices to check whether they are in need of insulin. In today’s world we have Contact Lens Help Check Sugar Levels methods to monitor blood sugar levels and even #-Link-Snipped-# almost painlessly. So taking a clue from these inventions, researchers at the North Carolina State University have come up with a sponge like material that can deliver insulin dosage whenever it detects low blood sugar levels. Dr. Zhen Gu has led a team of researchers at this US university to create a ‘smart-sponge’ out of chitosan, a material found in shrimp and crab shells for controlled drug delivery.


The spherical sponge-like matrix surrounding an insulin reservoir measuring approximately 250 micrometers contains many tiny nanocapsules made out of porous polymer which have glucose oxidase or catalase enzymes within them. Whenever blood sugar levels spike in a patient’s body the glucose in the sponge causes a chemical reaction that makes the enzymes present in the nanocapsules to release hydrogen ions. When the hydrogen ions which bind the molecular strands of the chitosan escape, it lends them a positive charge which makes them pull apart from each other creating pores by which insulin from the reservoir can enter the blood stream. As the insulin lowers the blood glucose levels in the body the chitosan gradually loses its positive charge and goes back to its original shape closing the pores and trapping the remaining insulin in the reservoir.

While in its present condition, the smart sponge has been proven effective for diabetes, researchers hope that in the future they might be able to alter it to be used in cancer treatment by delivering anticancer drugs to tumours in the same way as above. To read more about this research we recommend you head over to the #-Link-Snipped-#.

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