A challenge-based laboratory to explore drug delivery from swellable matrices

This paper describes an experiment that introduces students to drug delivery from swellable matrices (tablets). Students produce hydrophilic polymeric tablets loaded with drug and measure the rate of release from the tablets for systems having different drug loading, polymer composition and polymer molecular weight. Transient concentration data are obtained from drug release studies and analyzed to characterize the release profile and to determine the predominant rate controlling mechanism. The purpose of the experiment is to provide engineering students with basic skills relevant to drug delivery while simultaneously introducing or reinforcing science principles; applications of science, math and engineering; the science and art of design, and data analysis. Students showed significant pre-post gains in several areas, and the gains for each objective between the pre- and post-test ranged from 48% to 60%. The average normalized gain between pre-test and post-test was 65%.