Medical Nanocarriers

Dear Colleagues,

The pandemic state demonstrates how diverse we are. Even though we are all exposed to the same infectious agent (SARS-COV-2), our immune systems react very differently. So, the approach of “one-size-fits-all” in modern medicine should be replaced by a new way for precise or personalized medicine. This fact is even more important when talking about complex diseases, like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s, among others. It is known that the use of drug delivery systems able to deliver active molecules to the desired site increases treatment success. When developing a delivery system, it is important to determine which will be the delivery route: intravenous or oral. Each route has different specificities, like size in the case of the intravenous route or ability to resist to acidic pH in the case of the oral route. A good drug delivery system must comply with at least two characteristics: the ability to penetrate through the body barriers and reach the desired location with minimal loss of the volume or activity while in circulation; and second, after reaching the site location they should be selective enough to affect mainly the desired cells. If these goals are achieved, there will be an increase in intracellular concentration of the drugs resulting with reduced dose-limit toxicity. The size is not only important due to the size of the vascular network (<200 nm), but they also need to be in the blood stream long enough to reach the target site without being eliminated by macrophages. Another important question is passive and active targeting; in the case of passive targeting, some drugs will not be efficiently diffused and may result in multiple-drug resistance. So, it is possible to overcome this issue by functionalizing the carriers so they can actively bind to specific cells after extravasation. The development of a nanocarrier is an extremely complex project as it involves several crucial steps from size, dispersion, and ability to target specific cells.

Dr. Cláudia Botelho
Guest Editor

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• nanocarriers
• size
• target
• functionalization
• specificities
• circulation
• low toxicity