A New Generation of UNCD Based Drug Delivery Devices

PABLO GURMAN, MARTIN ZALAZAR AND ORLANDO AUCIELLO

Congreso; XXI INTERNATIONAL MATERIALS RESEARCH CONGRESS 2012; 2012

Ultrananocrystalline Diamond (UNCD) is a promising material for biomedical applications due to its extraordinary mulifunctionality, including tunable electrical conductivity up to the semimetallic level, extremely low wear, very low coefficient of friction, high smoothness, bio-inertness and biocompatibility. UNCD is particularly relevant for implantable medical devices where biological performance of materials must meet very stringent requirements. Drug delivery systems represent an important area in medical devices due to the improvement achieved in drug transport and bio-distribution. The aim of this work was to design, develop and test two different kinds of drug delivery devices based on UNCD, namely, a passive drug delivery device that takes advantage of diffusion of the drug through holes with controlled size, shape and spacing between holes, and a second approach whereby a piezoelectrically controlled switch valve operates to allow a controlled release of the drug from a microreservoir when is opened by applying a voltage. Finally, we discussed the implications of active drug delivery systems in terms of its potential to be integrated with wireless technologies to achieve remote control of implantable medical microdevices.