Smart Materials for Targeted Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Delivery and Controlled Release".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2023) | Viewed by 1398

Special Issue Editors

1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Medical Materials and Devices, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biomedical Materials, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin 300192, China
2. Xiangya School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Central South University, Changsha 410013, China
Interests: biomaterials; drug delivery; cancer immunotherapy; nanomedicine; cancer nanotechnology; molecular pharmaceutics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin 300192, China
Interests: molecular pharmaceutics; nanomedicine; drug delivery; biomaterials

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Smart materials have been developed for many applications, from sensing and energy harvesting to drug delivery. With the advent of new materials and technologies, smart materials have become increasingly important for biomedical applications, such as drug delivery and cancer therapy. Smart nanomaterials can not only release drugs specifically in response to the tumor microenvironment, but also precisely regulate the drug release rate through exogenous stimulus to achieve long-acting circulation in vivo, tumor site enrichment effect and controlled release.

The aim of this Special Issue is to focus on the design and fabrication of smart materials for targeted drug delivery and cancer therapy. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the development of biocompatible, biodegradable and smart materials for drug delivery, smart drug delivery systems and strategies for designing smart materials for cancer therapy. The Special Issue will also highlight the challenges and opportunities of smart materials for targeted drug delivery and cancer therapy. We are pleased to invite you to contribute your original research or review articles on the above areas.

Prof. Dr. Lin Mei
Dr. Meitong Ou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • cancer therapy
  • targeted drug delivery
  • exogenous triggered
  • smart materials
  • tumor microenvironment responsive

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 5489 KiB  
Article
Constructing ROS-Responsive Supramolecular Gel with Innate Antibacterial Properties
by Fen Zheng, Wei Du, Minggang Yang, Kaige Liu, Shanming Zhang, Long Xu and Yong Wen
Pharmaceutics 2023, 15(8), 2161; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15082161 - 19 Aug 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1053
Abstract
Bacterial infections, especially antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, pose a significant threat to human health. Supramolecular gel with innate antibacterial properties is an advanced material for the treatment of bacterial infections, which have attracted great attention. Herein, a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive innate antibacterial supramolecular [...] Read more.
Bacterial infections, especially antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, pose a significant threat to human health. Supramolecular gel with innate antibacterial properties is an advanced material for the treatment of bacterial infections, which have attracted great attention. Herein, a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive innate antibacterial supramolecular gel is developed by a bottom-up approach based on phenylalanine and hydrazide with innate antibacterial properties. The structure of gelators and intermediate products was characterized by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) and a high-resolution mass spectrum (HRMS). The results of 1H NMR and the Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT–IR) experiment disclosed that hydrogen bonding and the π–π stacking force are the important self-assembly driving forces of gelators. The microstructure and mechanical properties of gel were studied by Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Rheometer, respectively. An in vitro degradation experiment proved that the gelator has ROS-responsive degradation properties. The in vitro drug release experiment further manifested that antibiotic-loaded gel has ROS-responsive drug-release performances. An in vitro cytotoxicity experiment showed that the supramolecular gel has good biocompatibility and could promote cell proliferation. The in vitro antibacterial experiment proved that the supramolecular gel has excellent inherent antibacterial properties, and the antibacterial rate against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) was 98.6% and 99.1%, respectively. The ROS-responsive supramolecular gel as a novel antibacterial agent has great application prospects in treating antibiotic-resistant bacterial-infected wounds and preventing the development of bacterial resistance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Materials for Targeted Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy)
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