Novel Drug Carries: Properties and Applications

Abstract

Conventional drug administration has several issues and challenges such as full doses absorption and efficient targeting, some generate undesirable secondary effects and promote damage to organs and tissues such as the liver and kidneys, and others trigger inflammation and immune responses. Hence, drug carriers help to promote drug absorption, enhance targeting, avoid or decrease secondary effects, possess the ability to camouflage drugs from immune cells and proteins, and permit controlled release to provide prolonged drug delivery to maintain its blood concentration within therapeutic limits. Drug carriers have gained importance thanks to their various properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, mechanical properties, and high surface area, among others. Drug carriers are getting crucial to avoid or diminish secondary effects and improve the targeting of the administered drugs incrementing their effectiveness. Hence, this book chapter aims to introduce some drug carriers (electrospun nanofibers, aptamers, micelles, and liposomes), describing the properties and polymers used. It is observed that fast dissolving administration is the most recommended strategy for the use of drug carriers, where more evident therapeutics benefits can be appreciated.