Dr. Sabitha M., Principal, Amrita School of Pharmacy and Aneesh S. A., third-year student of Pharm D. (PB), participated in international conferences held at Japan and Singapore respectively.

Dr. Sabitha M. did paper and poster presentations in the 10th International Conference of Asia-Pacific Chitin & Chitosan Symposium during October 4 – 8, 2013 at Yonago, Japan.

She presented the paper titled Chitin Nanogels in Trans-dermal and Corneal Drug Delivery as a young scientist speaker.

Her paper highlighted the effectiveness of chitin nanogels as an ideal drug delivery system owing to their attractive properties like size tunability, large surface area, permeability, excellent drug loading capacity, controlled release and responsiveness to environmental stimuli.

Dr. Sabitha explained further on her research paper.

“In our laboratory, biodegradable chitin nanogels were developed of size around 65 nm having spherical morphology. The potential of developed chitin nanogel system for their drug delivery application was tested using two anticancer drugs, curcumin and 5-FU (fluorouracil), and an antifungal drug, Fluconazole.”

“The curcumin loaded nanogels showed a 4-fold increase in steady state transdermal flux of curcumin as compared to that of control curcumin solution, whereas 5-FU loaded nanogels showed almost same steady state flux as that of control 5-FU but the retention in the deeper layers of skin was found to be 4 to 5 times more. The antifungal studies of Fluconazole-loaded nanogel having various concentrations were done using the fungal strain Candida tropicalis (causing eye infections) and the result indicated an increase in antifungal activity with respect to an increase in concentration.”

“This proved that chitin nanogel system is a suitable candidate for topical delivery of drugs into skin and eye.”

Out of 187 papers presented at the conference, 6 were from India. Dr. Sabitha was one among the 3 speakers from India. She also presented a poster on Skin Permeating Chitin Nanogel for Cutaneous Delivery of Antipsoriatic Drugs.

Aneesh S. A. presented a poster at the 6th Asian Association of Schools of Pharmacy Conference held at National University of Singapore during November 14 – 17, 2013. His poster was titled Development and Implementation of Amrita Pediatric Dosage Information Software (APDIS) & Preparation of Pediatric Formulary & Drug Therapy Guide in AIMS.

Aneesh’s poster was one among the 120 posters presented.

“The conference mainly focused on pharmacy education forum and workshops. I was fortunate to listen to the lectures of distinguished and experienced pharmacy educators like Ralph J. Altiere, University of Colorado; Jennifer Marriott, Monash University, Australia; Yolanda R. Robles, University of Philippines; Ah-Ng Tony Kong, Rutgers University, USA; Yoshiaki Kiso, Nagahama Institute of Bioscience and Technology, Japan; Eun-Seok Park, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea; Subagus Wahyuono, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia; Qidong You, China Pharmaceutical University, China and Ibrahim Jantan, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,” shared Aneesh

“The conference also helped me in building contacts with many eminent personalities all over the world and also helped a lot in understanding about the global pharmacy education status,” he concluded.

November 19, 2013
School of Pharmacy, Kochi