Computational Modeling of Biomaterial Degradation and Local Drug Release Facilitates Rapid Device Development, Enhanced Performance and Regulatory Evaluation

摘要

Biodegradable materials are popular platforms for biocompatible and tunable local drug release. However, controlling and predicting material degradation dynamics, and the associated drug release kinetics in the complex in vivo environment often proves challenging. Commonly, in vivo performance is governed by unforeseen processes that do not present in the artificial in vitro environment used to evaluate device performance. While experimental techniques might provide clues as to dominance of emergent in vivo processes, definitive identification of the mechanisms governing in vivo performance is limited by spatial resolution of in vivo imaging systems, or by the destructive, invasive nature of the assay (e.g. histology) that makes it impossible to follow the same area at multiple time points.