Abstract

Biomedical application of pullulan - A review

Author(s): Pravin G.Kadam, S.T.Mhaske

Pullulan, an extracellular á-glucan, having botanical name as Pullularia pullulans, a natural polymer was discovered in 1900Â’s. It is recently being investigated for biomedical applications in various fields like targeted drug delivery, gene delivery, diagnostic imaging using quantum dots etc. Pulluan being biocompatible gives a great scope in the biomedical applications. Pullulan is highly capable of replacing currently commercially used polymers in biomedical application in the form films, blend or nanocomposite. The main aim of the review is to make the readers aware of the various modifications done in Pullulan to make it more suitable for critical applications like gene delivery, controlled drug release etc.