Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS I: DELIVERY OF
DRUGS
Giampiero Spalluto, a Stephanie Federico, a Barbara Cacciari, b Alberto
Bianco, c Siew Lee Cheong d and Maurizio Prato a
a Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Università di Trieste, Trieste 34127, Italy
b Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Ferrara, 44100 Ferrara, Italy
c CNRS, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, UPR 9021 Immunologie et Chimie
Thérapeutiques, 67000 Strasbourg, France
d Department of Pharmacy, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543
spalluto@univ.trieste.it
2.1 INTRODUCTION
In the last few years several nanosystems, derived from simple or more
complex materials, have been strongly investigated as drug delivery systems
(DDS), considering their ability to transverse several physiological barriers,
which represent a challenging obstacle for drug targeting. In addition, DDS
could be considered fundamental to avoid several limitations presented by
various therapeutic agents such as poor solubility in biological luids, rapid
deactivation, unfavourable pharmacokinetics, limited biodistribution and
unwanted side effects intrinsically associated with systemic administration. 1
Considering all these aspects, an ideal DDS should release a therapeutic
agent to the target site without collateral adverse damage, protect the
molecule from deactivation, improve the pharmacokinetic proile and
enhance intracellular penetration and biodistribution. 2
In general, nano-size DDS show a reduced size ranging from 1 to 100 nm,
and this aspect permits a suitable manipulation at the molecular level.
 
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