Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) is the process of measuring the concentration of a drug in blood and then correlating it clinically in order to optimize the therapy for the patient. It started in the 1960s and the last three decades have seen enormous spurt in the number of hospitals and laboratories routinely doing it in order to provide greater insights into factors that determine a patient’s response to drug therapy. It is done mainly for drugs with narrow margin of safety, whose therapeutic effects cannot be quantified clinically. Suitable analytical tests like High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Immunoassays are available to detect drug or its metabolites and the results are then interpreted in the context of the condition of the patient. It serves as a useful tool to provide tailor made optimal drug therapy to the patient, thereby maximizing the efficacy and minimizing the side effects.

Current review on in-situ gelling system explains about gels which are defined as intermediate state of matter consists of liquid and solid components. Hydrogels are also briefly discussed in the review that is defined as three dimensional structures which has capacity to retain bulk amount of water and also biological fluids to swell. In-situ gels are type of hydrogels that are solution in form and undergo gelation in contact with body fluids or change in pH. Some of the polymers that are used in in-situ gelling system are guar gum, gellan gum, xanthan gum, carrageenan, xyloglucan, pectin, chitosan and thiolated chitosan. In this review on in-situ gelling system, some of the approaches through which in-situ gels can be obtained are also discussed. It also focuses on the applications of in-situ gels that are the type of novel drug delivery systems in which these systems can be formulated. Some of the novel drug delivery systems are oral, nasal, injectable and ophthalmic drug delivery systems.

Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.) R. Br. (family Convolvulaceae), commonly known as “Ivy leaf morning glory” has long been used as a traditional medicine. This study was intended to characterize the antioxidant properties and the total phenolic compounds (TPC) of four extracts of I. pes-caprae obtained by hexane, dichloromethane (DCM), ethyl acetate and methanol solvents respectively. Extraction with hexane (1.3 ± 0.03 gm) and DCM (0.48 ± 0.02 gm) showed the highest yield. The highest amount (20.02 mg/g dry wt. gallic acid equivalent) of TPC was observed for methanol extract. Methanol showed the highest antioxidant activity of 208.54 ± 4.14 mg/g dry wt. ascorbic acid equivalent, followed by ethyl acetate (176.43 ± 2.4 mg/g dry wt. ascorbic acid equivalent). The reducing power ability of Ipomoea pes-caprae extracts steadily increased with increasing concentration of all the samples.  In DPPH (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl) assay, methanol extract exhibited the most effective scavenging ability (97.85%) among the four extracts. It was observed that methanol fraction has the strongest inhibition (90.31%) against hydroxyl radical at 1000 μg/mL concentration. The maximum hydrogen peroxide radical scavenging activity (81.56%) was exhibited by methanol fraction. In the ABTS radical cation scavenging activity, the methanol extract showed highest activity (96.43%) the concentration of 1000 µg/ml. On the contrary, maximum hemolytic activity of 32 hemolytic units (HU)/mg was observed in case of ethyl acetate extract against chicken blood. Our findings identified the appropriate solvent for extracting phenolic compounds which might provide a rich and novel source of natural antioxidants.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the antiinflammatory activity in the ethanol extract of aerial part of Maerua apetala. The antiinflammatory activity was assessed by carrageenan induced paw oedema in albino rats. The aerial part extract of this plant were administered orally at doses of 100, 150 and 300 mg / kg body weight and the study was compared with a standard drug indomethacin (10 mg / kg). The highest dose of Maerua apetala aerial part extracts (300 mg / kg) produced a maximum inhibition of 84.17% at 3 hours after administration which was more effective. Further detailed studies are in progress for the isolation of single entity responsible for antiinflammatory activity and development of suitable formulations.

Moxifloxacin is the wide range antibiotic effective against the (-ve) bacteria and (+ve) bacteria .The forced degradation studies conducted for the determination of degradation of durg product. According to ICH guide line moxifloxacin exposed to different condition. Degradation amount of the drug product can be calculated with the help of UV spectrophotometer. According to USP /BP the official test limits should not less then (   %) and should not more then (%).  On exposure to acidic and basic medium of avelox ,izilone and Moxiget the forced degradation studies conducted . Observed negligible difference in availability on exposure to UV and heat during the forced degradation studies of the drug substance. This method is simple, less time consuming and cost effective. For the simultaneous quantitative analysis of the Avelox, izilone and Moxiget this method also can be successfully employed.

Lipases play a vital role in modern Biotechnology owing to their multifaceted properties. Their production and purification procedures need to be improved in order to enhance their stability and turn over. This work was done to study the effect of immobilization of whole cells of lactobacillus in the production of lipase in comparison with free cells of lactobacillus. Ammonium sulphate precipitation and High performance liquid chromatography were used as purification procedures. Activity of purified lipases were found to be 10µmol fatty acid released/ml of substrate   for free cell fermentation and 40 µmol fatty acid released/ml of substrate for immobilized cells respectively. Tolerence of lipase against organic solvents such as ethanol, acetone, benzene, and hexane were determined. Michaelis Menton parameters for the enzyme like Vmax, Km ,β were found to be 1.295 µg/ml/min,0.924 µg/ml,1.0663 for free cell fermentation and 0.201µg/ml/min ,9.378µg/ml,10.825 for immobilized whole cell fermentation.

Polysaccharides seem to be the most promising materials in the preparation of micro and nanometeric carriers. Micro and nanoparticles may be comprised of several kind materials being classified as nondegradable and biodegradable. Biodegradable systems have an advantage over nondegradable systems in that they are non-toxic, biocompatible, biodegradable, and water soluble. The application of natural polysaccharides in novel drug delivery systems to deliver the bioactive agents has been hampered by the synthetic polymers. The main benefits of the natural polysaccharides are their being biodegradable, biocompatible, non-toxic, richly available and less expensive. Because of the advances in drug delivery technology, natural polysaccharides are included in novel drug delivery to fulfill multitask functions. Substantial research efforts have been directed towards developing safe and efficient natural based polysaccharide particulate drug delivery systems. In this review, brief information on natural polysaccharides is covered. This review also covers modification techniques for natural polysaccharides and the newest developments in the preparation of polysaccharide based micro and nanoparticles with their characterization techniques and their applications are covered.