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Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists are peptides consisting of nine or ten amino acid residues. GnRH agonists have been applied in the therapy of sexual hormone disorders like prostate cancer, endometriosis, uterine myoma, central precious puberty, and in-vitro fertility. Treatment is achieved by continuous hormone intake and long-term agonists administration, which is usually associated with poor patient compliance. Because GnRH agonists that are administered with the parenteral route are broken down by peptidase, their half-life is short. As a result, developing sustained release for the drug delivery system is significant. Even though some drugs have been successfully delivered with long-acting release microspheres and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), some challenges remain. This review highlighted current approaches to encapsulate GnRH agonists into delivery systems and strategies encountered during the loading process. Moreover, the following sections provide strategies to improve the release profile, and animal and human studies were summarised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sodium-ion batteries are regarded as an affordable alternative to commercial lithium-ion batteries in energy storage systems because of their abundant resources and comparable energy storage capabilities. Hard carbon is a prospective anode material to consider for the commercialization of sodium-ion batteries due to its promising electrochemical performance and the possibility of using renewable resources of bio-waste to obtain hard carbon. However, numerous disadvantages, including low initial coulombic efficiency and voltage hysteresis, continue to constrain the use of hard carbon in sodium-ion batteries. Various strategies have been attempted to address these challenges to transfer present promising research opportunities into practical applications. This review provides recent insights on bio-waste-derived hard carbons, which are classified into different types of hard carbon precursors, the effect of carbonization temperature and doping on the physical characteristics, and the variation in the property of hard carbon under different synthetic parameters is directly correlated with sodium storage process. We discuss the associated sodium storage mechanisms in-depth. This work also provides a future perspective on bio-waste-derived hard carbons and the feasibility of their practical utilization in room temperature type low-cost sodium-ion batteries. [Display omitted] • Hard carbon is the best candidate as an anode material for sodium-ion batteries. • This review shares challenges and opportunities of hard carbon materials. • We highlight bio-waste-derived hard carbons for practical applications. • Developing stable anode materials is key for commercializing sodium-ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, AIDS drugs are typical inhibitors that cannot achieve permanent effects. Therefore, the research of blocking HIV infection is essential. Especially for people in the high‐risk environment, long‐term prevention is important, because HIV can easily infect cells once the drug is interrupted. However, there is still no long‐acting AIDS prevention drug approved. Hence, the purpose of this study is to prepare a fusion inhibitor loaded poly(d, l‐lactic‐co‐glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres as a sustained‐release system for long‐term AIDS prevention. As the HIV membrane fusion inhibitor (LP‐98) used in this research is amphiphilic lipopeptide, W1/O/W2 double‐emulsion method was chosen, and premix membrane emulsification technique was used for controlling the uniformity of particle size. Several process parameters that can impact drug loading efficiency were summarized: the concentration of LP‐98 and PLGA, and the preparation condition of primary emulsion. Finally, the microspheres with high loading efficiency (>8%) and encapsulation efficiency (>90%) were successfully prepared under optimum conditions. Pharmacokinetic studies showed that LP‐98‐loaded microspheres were capable to continuously release for 24 days in rats. This research can promote the application of sustained‐release microspheres in AIDS prevention, and the embedding technique used in this study can also provide references for the loading of other amphipathic drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low encapsulation efficiency of the drug usually exist in hydrophilic drug which was embedded by hydrophobic materials directly in traditional method. In order to solve this problem, a novel preparation strategy which called "post-loading mode" was innovatively designed in this study: ropivacaine hydrochloride (ROP), a hydrophilic drug used in the field of anesthesia and analgesia, was encapsulated into the pre-prepared porous Poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres; the porous PLGA microspheres (PLGA-Ms) with self-healing characteristic were used to obtain ROP-PLGA-Ms (with particle size around were 38 µm), in which drug loading (DL) was 8.72%. A rat sciatic nerve block model was established to evaluate the efficacy of ROP-PLGA-Ms. Exparel®, a bupivacaine liposome suspension approved by the FDA, was defined as reference agents in this study. The results showed that the injection of ROP, Exparel®, and ROP-PLGA-Ms were injected to the peripheral sciatic nerve could lead to motor dysfunction and sensory nerve block unanimously, and the onset time was less than 10 min for all cases. In addition, in comparison with ROP injection and Exparel®, the nerve block time of ROP-PLGA-Ms was significantly prolonged (P < 0.05). Effective analgesia duration of ROP-PLGA-Ms was about 5 h, 2.5 and 1.7 folds longer than that of ROP injection and Exparel®, respectively. The rats in each group could recover eventually within 8 h after administration. H&E showed that no inflammatory reaction was observed at the injection location. Analysis of blood biochemistry showed an insignificant difference between the microsphere experimental group and the negative group, which further indicated the safety of microsphere bioformulation. [Display omitted] • Porous PLGA microspheres with "self-healing" characteristics. • ROP-PLGA microspheres with uniform particle size, high drug load. • The sciatic nerve block model of SD rats was established to evaluate the efficacy. • Biological safety of porous self-healing ROP-PLGA microspheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]