Impact of ‘Open Data’ and its Effectiveness forPakistan Social Issues: Learning fromthe UK Experience

Developmental projects are essential ingredients of prosperity and well-being. Every nation has to ensure that her people are living in a perfect and safe sociopolitical environment. However, it varies from region to region and place to place. UK as a country is a big economy which is capable of giving its people the type of security they need. For this purpose, various types of strategies have been emphasized which enable the government to look for the benefit of its people. Open data system is one of these important developments which have been initiated by the UK government to provide huge access to databases. It improves their learning and knowledge, and gives the opportunity to think ‘out of box’. It also enables people to polish their learning skills and take things out of their resources and utilize them fully. Although, there is some compulsion on the use of private data sources, yet it is necessary to know that not all data are confidential. The research looks into the pros and cons of using open data systems and to assess its impacts on the social and political development in UK. The use of open data system is not only beneficial for the people to perform their daily life tasks, it is important to evade corruption and foster great accountability of national institutions. So, there remains feeble chance of witnessing corruption in the society that could cause chaos in the nation. The use of open data systems is important for boosting up innovation and creativity for a developing country like Pakistan. Open data system has been seen playing a big part in establishing a trend of innovative growth pushed by the availability of these resources. The influence and impact of ‘Open Data’ has largely been observed during the recent Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) where the government has utilized the data to tackle the disease in Pakistan.

Synthesis and Characterization of Drug Loaded Biodegradable Nanoparticles for Enhanced Bio-Distribution

Glioblastoma multiform (GBM) and Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are most invasive and uniformly fatal type of brain and lung cancer respectively, with median survival of less than 20 months after diagnosis even with the most aggressive treatment that includes surgery, radiation, and systemic chemotherapy. Currently many chemotherapeutic anticancer drugs are being used in clinical trials which inhibit tumor growth by inhibiting certain pathways inside cancer cells. Luteolin and Ellipticine are plant derived compounds of potent antitumor activity, class of topoisomerase II inhibitor which intercalates with DNA and makes DNA adduct and kill cancer cells. Another class of drugs is polo-like kinase (PLK) inhibitors; among those BI-2536 is highly potent anticancer PLK inhibitor with IC50 of less than 0.9 nM is recently abandoned from phase II trials due to adverse neutropenic effects via systemic delivery. Major limitation of GBM chemotherapy is highly selective semipermeable blood brain barrier (BBB) which is comprises of brain microvascular endothelial cells connected by tight junctions. For NSCLC, chemothereutic approaches also have some limitations such as invasive nature and reoccurrence of disease.To enhance bioavailability of drug across BBB and mucus barrier, high dose of drugs is being used which enhances offsite toxicity risk. To reduce offsite toxicity and enhance bioavailability of these drugs biodegradable nanoparticles (<100 nm size) are being developed as carriers to increase high payload of drugs and release drugs in sustained manner thus reduce dose dependent toxicity. Based on previous reports, current project is designed to synthesize and characterize biodegradable nanoparticles for enhanced bio-distribution. First, different biological materials (lipids, Albumin and PLGA), already being used for nanoparticles (NPs) synthesis were optimized and screened to get 100nm sized nanoparticles with high payload of drugs. PLGA and BSA NPs were selected from all due to high payload of drug 5% of PLGA and (9.5%) in BSA compared to other NPs. Both PLGA-PEG and BSA NPs were further characterized to determine morphology and size using zetasizer, TEM. Release kinetics and in vitro anticancer activity of nanoparticles vs free drug was determined against GBM cell lines (F98, (9LL) and NSCLC cell lines (A549) using toxicity assays. Drug loaded NPs showed promising results, released drugs in sustained manner and retained their toxicity. For GBM, BSA formulations were further characterized for in vivo bio distribution in rats and mice brains tissues by convection enhanced delivery (CED) and systemic delivery using fluorescent and confocal microscope. Conventional Polystyrene (PS) and freshly PEGylated PS particles of 40-60nm size were used as standard.Data was analyzed using MATLAB and statistical softwares (GraphPad Prism and Kaleidagraph). Both empty and drug loaded BSA NPs showed highest ex-vivo and in vivo distributions compared to conventional PS-NPs. BSA NPs were successfully synthesized with high payload of both drugs which retained their activity and release drugs in sustained manner. BSA NPs further showed promising in vivo distribution results both locally and systemically compared to conventional particles of same characteristics already available in market.