María Vallet‐Regí

Research on mesoporous materials for biomedical purposes has experienced an outstanding increase during recent years. Since 2001, when MCM-41 was first proposed as drug-delivery system, silica-based materials, such as SBA-15 or MCM-48, and some metal-organic frameworks have been discussed as drug carriers and controlled-release systems. Mesoporous materials are intended for both systemic-delivery systems and implantable local-delivery devices. The latter application provides very promising possibilities in the field of bone-tissue repair because of the excellent behavior of these materials as bioceramics. This Minireview deals with the advances in this field by the control of the textural parameters, surface functionalization, and the synthesis of sophisticated stimuli-response systems.

A new application of MCM-41 mesoporous materials has been developed. Two kinds of surfactants, C16TAB and C12TAB, have been employed to get different pore sizes. The samples were disk-shaped conformed before and after charging with ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory drug. In all the cases the weight percent ratio of drug/MCM-41 was 30%. The drug release plots show a different behavior depending on the method for charging the drug in the material but not on the employed surfactant.

Fill 'em up: The metal carboxylates MIL-100 and MIL-101 act as porous matrices (see picture; MIL=Materials of Institut Lavoisier) for drug-delivery systems using Ibuprofen as a model substrate. Very large amounts of the drug could be incorporated, up to an unprecedented capacity of 1.4 g of drug per gram of porous solid for MIL-101, and the total release of Ibuprofen was achieved under physiological conditions in 3 (MIL-100) and 6 days (MIL-101). Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://www.wiley-vch.de/contents/jc_2002/2006/z601878_s.pdf or from the author. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

Flexible nanoporous chromium or iron terephtalates (BDC) MIL-53(Cr, Fe) or M(OH)[BDC] have been used as matrices for the adsorption and in vitro drug delivery of Ibuprofen (or alpha- p-isobutylphenylpropionic acid). Both MIL-53(Cr) and MIL-53(Fe) solids adsorb around 20 wt % of Ibuprofen (Ibuprofen/dehydrated MIL-53 molar ratio = 0.22(1)), indicating that the amount of inserted drug does not depend on the metal (Cr, Fe) constitutive of the hybrid framework. Structural and spectroscopic characterizations are provided for the solid filled with Ibuprofen. In each case, the very slow and complete delivery of Ibuprofen was achieved under physiological conditions after 3 weeks with a predictable zero-order kinetics, which highlights the unique properties of flexible hybrid solids for adapting their pore opening to optimize the drug-matrix interactions.