Biochemistry

Biography

Biography: Ali Morsali

Abstract

In the domain of health, one important challenge is the efficient delivery of drugs in the body using   non-toxic   nanocarriers. Up  until now, two routes have been set up: The “organic route”, which uses either biocompatible polymers and the “ inorganic route ”, in which the hosts are inorganic porous solids, such as zeolites or mesoporous silicate materials. Most of t he existing carrier materials show poor drug loading and rapid release of the proportion of the drug that is simply adsorbed at the external surface of the nanocarrier. Herein, we introduce a third way: Porous inorganic-organic hybrid solids. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of hybrid  crystalline  materials composed of organic linkers and metal nodes, with a diversity of structural characteristics and the nature of the pore surface. These materials have unquestionably enormous potential for many practical structure-related applications. This includes the more traditional areas of storage, separation or controlled release of gases, catalysis, sensing, and  d rug  delivery. I n this regards, we would like to introduce our azine/amide-functinalized pillar-layered TMU MOFs (TMU = Tarbiat Modares University) as potential drug delivery systems. For instance, the two 3D porous Zn(II)-based MOFs, containing azine-functionalized pores, [Zn₂(oba)₂(4-bpdb)]·(DMF)₂ (TMU-4) and [Zn₂(oba)₂(4-bpdh)]·(DMF)₂ (TMU-5) have showed acceptable capture of CO₂ with CO₂/N₂ selectivities of ~25 at 298 K. Moreover, a new MOF, TMU-30, based on isonicotinate N-oxide as an adsorptive site has been used for fast and highly efficient aqueous phase adsorption of Cr(VI) over a pH range of 2–9. Combination of high and regular porosity with the presence of functionalized-organic groups within  the TMUs can cumulate the advantages to achieve both a high drug loading and a controlled release.