Pourya Zarshenas - Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
Fereshteh Azimian - Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

Designing of a smart drug delivery system for cancer cell targeting is always a hot topic in life science research. Titanium dioxide (TiO۲) as a cost-effective and non-toxic nano structure with high functional surface and photo catalytic activity has been used in cancer drug delivery system. In other hand, recently, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)-based smart hydrogels which could stimulated by a slight change in temperature to give a significant swelling/deswelling process and lead to phase transition at a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) has gain much attention. In pursuit of design thermo-responsive polymeric nanocarrier for sustained delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) drug, TiO۲-poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) hybrid was prepared using controlled polymerization technique known as reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. The accuracy of the synthesized polymer nano composite data has been confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Calorimetric Analysis (TGA) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). Subsequently, the thermo-responsive behavior of the PNIPAM/TiO۲ was investigated by UV–Vis spectroscopy. DOX was successfully loaded into the PNIPAM/TiO۲ nanogel and release pattern of nanodrug carrier was assessed in the simulated medium of healthy organs or cancer tissue with ۳۷ and ۴۲°C. Finally, the cytotoxicity assay will be performed on breast cancer/MCF-۷ cell line to determine potential of nanodrug carrier as a highly intelligent anti-cancer agent.

TiO۲-poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) ،nanocarrier, smart delivery system، doxorubicin ،MTT assay