Biodegradable Materials for Drug Delivery
A special issue of Journal of Functional Biomaterials (ISSN 2079-4983).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2018) | Viewed by 8723
Special Issue Editor
Interests: functional polymers; polymer degradation; biomedical polymers; biomimetic polymers; molecularly imprinted polymers; bionics; high performance polymers; industrial aspects of polymers
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Treatment of patients very often requires the use of pharmaceutically-active substances, to be administered in a controlled way. The chosen drugs are usually linked with, or imbedded in, a matrix, allowing, in many cases, not only the control of the delivery of a drug carrier system to a specific target site, but also of the following release of the active agent at that location. The subsequent and often-unsolved challenge, however, is the fate of the carrier matrices. Various carriers, with a number of them being biodegradable, have been developed over the years. Nevertheless, some tend to accumulate in a patient’s body, showing no or only retarded degradation effects; some are degraded into harmful, or at least tissue irritating, fragments. Hence, current research efforts are directed to enhance the biodegradability of such matrices or to develop novel carrier systems without the named drawbacks. Optimal future carrier materials should, not only be equipped with the ability to deliver and release the drugs solely where and when being needed, but should also be provided with degradation timers, based on their molecular designs, leading to harmless fragmentation products.
This Special Issue, “Biodegradable Materials for Drug Delivery”, covers the different classes of biodegradable materials used for drug delivery approaches, such as natural and synthetic polymers, or inorganic materials, such as ceramics and metals. It highlights established delivery systems like hydrogels, supramolecular structures, nanoparticles or lipid-based carriers, describes the variety of applied dosage forms in this context like capsules, patches, or solutions, and addresses the aspect of biocompatibility of these materials, i.e., their impact on livings cells and tissues. Furthermore, the drug release from these materials, triggered by different stimuli, as well as promising smart delivery concepts are explained. Finally, the actual degradation process caused by stimuli like pH-shift, enzymes, temperature, or combinations thereof will be discussed.
Prof. Dr. Oliver BrüggemannGuest Editor
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Keywords
- Natural polymers
- Synthetic polymers
- Biodegradable inorganic materials
- Composite and hybrid materials
- Hydrogels
- Supramolecular structures and nanoparticles
- Lipids
- Dosage forms of biodegradable drug delivery systems
- Biocompatibility - interaction with cells and tissues
- Stimuli responsive drug release
- Smart drug delivery
- Stimuli responsive degradation
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