Drug Delivery Using Nanomaterials

Book excerpt: After the drug discovery and development process, designing suitable formulations to safely deliver the optimum dose, while avoiding side effects, has been a constant challenge, especially when drugs are very toxic and have poor solubility and undesirable clearance profiles. With recent advances in synthetic technologies, nanoparticles can be custom-made from a variety of advanced materials to mimic the bioenvironment and can be equipped with various targeting and imaging moieties for site-specific delivery and real-time imaging. Drug Delivery Using Nanomaterials covers advancements in the field of nanoparticle-based drug-delivery systems, along with all the aspects needed for a successful and marketable nanoformulation. FEATURES Offers a general overview of the entire process involved in the synthesis and characterization of pharmaceutical nanoparticles Covers a broad range of synthetic materials for developing nanoformulations customized for specific disease states, target organs, and drugs Every chapter sequentially builds, providing a progressive pathway from classical nanoparticles to the more advanced to be used as a full drug product by consumers Provides information in a bottom-up manner in that definitions and explanations of relevant background information serve as a framework for understanding advanced concepts This user-friendly reference is aimed at materials engineers, chemical engineers, biomedical engineers, pharmaceutical scientists, chemists, and others working on advanced drug delivery, from academia as well as industry.