Synthesis and Characterization of Hydroxyethylstarch Hydrogels as Drug Delivery Systems

With the fast development of new biopharmaceutics a successful application of proteins as active ingredients depends on the availability of an efficient delivery and release system, which allows a controlled release of physiological amounts of proteins next to the target tissue over a certain period of time.
Our biodegradable hydrogel delivery system bases on radical crosslinking of Hydroxyethyl starch-poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate in the presence of proteins (Fig. 1) employing a photoinitiator.

Fig. 1: Incorporation of the protein and photocrosslinking of the methacrylate double bonds

Characterization methods

Fig. 2: swelling measurements	Fig. 3: rheological analysis	Fig. 4: magneto relaxation in Corporation with Institute for Electrical Measurements, TU Braunschweig

Fig. 5: release studies in Corporation with Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology, TU Braunschweig	Fig. 6: anisotropy by 2-photon excitation in Corporation with Institute for Physical Chemistry, TU Braunschweig

This work is supported by the DFG as part of the SFB 578.