Determination of antibiotic release from electrospun nanofibers

Decreasing the risk of infection following surgery for traumatic bone breaks is a major focus of the medical and scientific community. Drug delivery devices are emerging as powerful solutions for combating infection following these procedures. Current devices, however, suffer several drawbacks including poor antibiotic release rate and control the devices themselves not being biodegradable. This thesis studies the \textit{in vitro} release rate for antibiotics tobramycin and vancomycin from a biodegradable medical implant. Antibiotics, collagen, and bone growth factors are incorporated into Poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-based electrospun nanofibers by local company eSpin for development. The drug-loaded nanofibers are immersed in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) at 37$^{\circ}$ C and assayed at specific time intervals to monitor antibiotic elution rate. The high concentration of phosphate and inorganic salts in PBS require a clean up step before quantification using ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Several methods for clean-up are examined, including: dialysis, liquid-liquid extraction, and three solid phase extractions. While no single method successfully extracted both antibiotics from the PBS matrix, this survey of methods provides direction for future work in developing this novel drug delivery device