In Vitro Release Study of L-Tyrosine-Loaded PLGA Microparticles

Polymer drug delivery system offers a key to a glaring issue in modern administration routes of drugs and biologics. Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) can be used to encapsulate drugs and biologics and deliver them into the patient, which allows high local concentration (compared to current treatment methods), protection of the cargo from the bodily environment, and reduction in systemic side effects. This experiment used a single emulsion technique to encapsulate L-tyrosine in PLGA microparticles and UV spectrophotometry to analyze the drug release over a period of one week. The release assay found that for the tested samples, the released amount is distinct initially, but is about the same after 4 days, and they generally follow the same normalized percent released pattern. The experiment could continue with testing more samples, test the same samples for a longer duration, and look into higher w/w concentrations such as 20% or 50%.