Preparation and Characterization of Tri Block PLA-PEG-PLA Nanofibers for Drug Delivery

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a synthetic biodegradable polymer which its application for development in new drug delivery systems has been limited due to its weak hydrophilicity,excessively long degradation time, and low drug loading of polar drugs [1]. To overcome this shortcoming, copolymerization with PEG has been proposed by different researchers in order to improve hydrophilicity, degradation rate and crystallization of PLA. Recently, there is a growinginterest to use nanofibers for sustained release of various therapeutic agents. Electrospinning has been recognized as anefficient technique for the fabrication of polymeric nanofibers. Featured with excellent characteristics, such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, mild undesirable hostreactions, enough tensility and three-dimensional and directional porous structures, PLA fiber, whose diameterrange from nanometer to millimeter, is broadly studied as an implantable artificial scaffold in tissue engineering field such as to regenerate damaged tissue, especially some fibroustissues (e.g. nerve system, muscle, heart) [2-6]. For the same reasons, these scaffolds are also attractive to thosepharmaceutical researchers who want to use them as drug delivery carrier in the biomedical application, especially postoperativelocal chemotherapy. In this study, nanofibers of PEG-PLA copolymers were prepared and characterized in order to be used as drug delivery system