Biopolymer-Based Nanomaterials in Drug Delivery and Biomedical Applications

Book excerpt: Over the past few decades, there has been unprecedented progress in the design of versatile biopolymer-based nanoplatforms for pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, particularly due to their attractive traits, including excellent biocompatibility, outstanding biodegradability, low immunogenicity, and facile chemical modifiability. Biopolymer-Based Nanomaterials in Drug Delivery and Biomedical Applications serves as a clear and detailed body of information on the synthesis and characterization of biopolymer-based materials in nanomedicine. This book describes various nanomaterials consisting of biopolymers including polysaccharides (i.e., derived from plants, animals, bacteria, algae, and fungi) and polypeptides in terms of their structures, synthetic protocols, and characterization and uses as therapeutic drugs and gene delivery carriers and in other biomedical fields. The chapters of this book, which are contributed by internationally renowned scholars working in the arena of biopolymer-based nanomaterials, would offer a wide vision on the potential future applications of these nanomaterials in the delivery and targeting of bioactive molecules of pharmaceutical interests and in tissue engineering, biosensing, bioimaging, and diagnostic purposes. The state-of-the-art information presented in the book would also encourage young investigators and researchers to further bring cutting-edge developments in the field of nanomedicine in the near future.