Abstract
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. The dream once seen and envisaged in many different fictions has come to reality. There is a possibility that in future people may travel in space for recreational purposes. There will be a need for developing drug delivery systems for such travelers who might be spending time in space and may not be as trained like the astronauts. One way of evaluating the drug delivery systems is to expose them to microgravity conditions, to study the impact of microgravity on the stability and effectiveness of the delivery systems. Nanoemulsions are dispersed systems where two non-miscible liquids, an oily system dispersed in an aqueous system, or vice versa, form droplets or oily phases of nano metric sizes. These are excellent carriers for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs. Therefore, nanoemulsions have characteristics that make them suitable for delivering drugs for space travelers. This chapter discusses the impact of microgravity on the stability of nanoemulsions carrying various therapeutic drugs. It is observed that nanoemulsions remained stable for more than 72 h when exposed to microgravity conditions. There was no effect on the particle size distribution of the nanoemulsions or the appearance of the nanoemulsions. There was a slight change in the zeta potential, but over the period of time the zeta potential reached back to stable conditions showing the stability of these drug delivery systems under microgravity conditions. There is a need for further exploration of this system as a drug carrier.
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Grover, A., Pathak, Y.V. (2020). Implications of Microgravity on Microemulsions and Nanoemulsions. In: Pathak, Y., Araújo dos Santos, M., Zea, L. (eds) Handbook of Space Pharmaceuticals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50909-9_31-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50909-9_31-1
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