Characterizing the drug release from thermosensitive composite HEMA-Nanoparticles hydrogel under mechanical loading

HEMA hydrogels are hydrophobic biocompatible hydrogel with high mechanical and viscoelastic properties, which are widely used in biomedical application including drug delivery systems. The mechanical properties and permeability of these hydrogels can be tuned by controlling the water concentration and cross-linker during polymerization. In this study the characterization of drug release from these hydrogels are of interest, since the release profile can be nicely tunable by changing the mesh size and permeability of hydrogels. The hydrogels will be polymerized via UV polymerization and the conventional release of proteins will be measured via spectrophotometry in different time steps. Also the release under cyclic compression mechanical loading is of interest. The drug models are proteins with different sizes including Lysozyme, Pepsin and BSA. The water uptake and permeability will be characterized before drug release study.