The central focus of Prof Dastidar’s research is crystal engineering with the aim of developing functional materials that range from organic to metal-organic hybrid to inorganic materials. The group is involved in developing soft materials such as supramolecular gels, functional coordination polymers including metallogels and also invented a process to improve the free-flow property of common salt through habit modification. Recently our lab mainly focuses on the biomedical applications of smart soft materials like supramolecular gels. Smart soft materials like supramolecular gels having both biomedical and rheoreversible behavior are of great interest because they are emerging as a promising tool for injectable and as well as self-delivery vehicles delivered at the target site. These fascinating materials are able to restore both mechanical and biological properties. The main focus is to develop multi-drug based supramolecular gel for self-delivery applications. In conventional drug-delivery technique, the drug is loaded on a commercially available polymeric gel matrix which is often called a carrier molecule. In this process, efficient drug loading (physically or chemically) and releasing, functionalization of the carrier molecule with the drug, cytotoxicity, biodegradability and biostability of the carrier molecule along with side effects are some of the crucial worries associated with it whereas to overcome these major issues, an alternative drug-delivery system popularly known as ‘self-delivery’ system is being adopted. In self-delivery system, the drug/prodrug or biogenic molecule itself is converted into a supramolecular gelator either by covalent (chemically) or non-covalent (physically) interactions without using any carrier molecules. In this report, both covalent and non-covalent modifications have been employed to convert multiple drugs into supramolecular gelator as self-delivery vehicle which may be either a hydrogel for oral, invasive, and topical applications or an organogel for topical applications. The emission spectra of the sol and gel of the gelators in aqueous medium showed a significant increase in the emission intensity in some of the cases. This result encouraged us to further explore the possibility of using the drug based gelators for cell imaging. Some methyl salicylate topical gels derived from different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) were successfully delivered in a self-delivery fashion to treat inflamed skin conditions in the mice model. Histological studies of the dorsal tissues of the untreated and treated mice clearly demonstrated the effect of topical gels in such treatment.

On the other hand, our group has been working in the area of coordination polymers (CP) from the last decade or so wherein our main focus was to develop CPs having intriguing structures for anion separation, metallogelation, catalysis etc. Recently, we have introduced drug delivery aspect in metal-organic hybrid systems. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) remained tethered in coordination polymeric network, has been successfully exploited in both anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. On the other side recently we have demonstrated the self-assembly of metal-organic polyhedral (MOP) to form vesicular architectures. The vesicles were stable in physiological conditions, biocompatible (MTT assay) and capable of encapsulating and releasing an anti-cancer drug doxorubicin in pH responsive manner. We are now interested in exploiting the surface of two dimensional CPs or MOPs in modulating the enzymatic activity.  

Further readings: Exploiting Supramolecular Synthons in Designing Gelators Derived from Multiple Drugs, Chem. Eur. J. 2014, 20, 15320–15324; Multidrug-Containing, Salt-Based, Injectable Supramolecular Gels for Self-Delivery, Cell Imaging and Other Materials Applications, Chem. Eur.J. 2016, 22, 14929–14939. 

Further readings: Supramolecular Gels by Design: Towards the Development of Topical Gels for Self-Delivery Application, Chem. Eur.J., 2016, 22, 9257–9266; β-Amino Acid and Amino-Alcohol Conjugation of a Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) Imparts Hydrogelation Displaying Remarkable Biostability, Biocompatibility, and Anti-Inflammatory Properties, Langmuir 2013, 29, 10254 – 10263.

Further readings: Designing a simple organic salt-based supramolecular topical gel capable of displaying in vivo self-delivery application, Chem. Commun. 2014, 50, 1671-1674; Supramolecular Synthon Approach in Developing Anti-Inflammatory Topical Gels for In Vivo Self-Delivery, Chem. Eur.J. 2017, 23, 15623 – 15627.

Further readings: An easy access to topical gels of an anti-cancer prodrug (5-fluorouracil acetic acid) for self-drug-delivery applications, Chem. Commun. 2019, 55, 7683 - 7686.