Controlled Release Technology: Delivery Systems for Pharmaceuticals and Other Agents
July 9 - July 13, 2018
R. Langer

The ways in which chemicals or drugs are administered have gained increasing attention in the past two decades. Normally, a chemical is administered in a high dose at a given time only to have to repeat that dose several hours or days later. This is not economical and sometimes results in damaging side effects. As a consequence, increasing attention has been focused on methods of giving drugs continually for prolonged time periods and in a controlled fashion. The primary method of accomplishing this controlled release has been through incorporating the chemicals within polymers. This technology now spans many fields and includes pharmaceutical, food and agricultural applications, pesticides, cosmetics, and household products.

In the pharmaceutical field, in addition to polymers, an understanding of the physiological barriers in the human body is also critical to developing appropriate controlled release systems. The skin, the gastrointestinal tract, the nose, and the eye are of particular importance. Finally, recent advances in genetic engineering have spawned numerous new polypeptide agents and DNA and siRNA. Approaches for delivering and stabilizing these molecules will be discussed.

The lectures will be presented by faculty members at MIT and other universities who are leaders in the fields. The lectures are intended to review the recent advances in the art and science of controlled release technology and to assess the prospects and directions of future developments.

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Teaching Faculty

Dr. Robert S. Langer, Program Director, David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT.

Dr. Alexander Klibanov, Professor of Chemistry at MIT.

Dr. Nicholas A. Peppas, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Frank Szoka, Professor for the College of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco.