Drug delivery

Drug delivery refers to approaches, formulations, technologies, and systems for transporting a pharmaceutical compound in the body some time based on nanoparticles as needed to safely achieve its desired therapeutic effect.

Drugs have long been used to improve health and extend lives. The practice of drug delivery has changed dramatically in the past few decades and even greater changes are anticipated in the near future. Biomedical engineers have contributed substantially to our understanding of the physiological barriers to efficient drug delivery, such as transport in the circulatory system and drug movement through cells and tissues; they have also contributed to the development several new modes of drug delivery that have entered clinical practice.

Medications can be taken in a variety of ways—by swallowing, by inhalation, by absorption through the skin, or by intravenous injection. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, and not all methods can be used for every medication. Improving current delivery methods or designing new ones can enhance the use of existing medications.

Biotechnology advances are leading to improved medications that can target diseases more effectively and precisely. Researchers have begun to reformulate drugs so they may be more safely used in specific conditions. The more targeted a drug is, the lower its chance of triggering drug resistance, a cautionary concern surrounding the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Nanotechnology is opening up new avenues for drug delivery vehicles. NIBIB-funded researchers have reported promising results in developing a treatment for glioblastoma, a devastating brain cancer. In rat models of the disease, they have shown that tumors can be penetrated and shrunken when injected with nanoparticles. The nanoparticles target the tumor by delivering an altered gene, or suicide gene, that is programmed for cell death. The nanoparticle method replaces a type of gene therapy using viruses, which can have unpredictable outcomes.

Many medications such as peptide and protein, antibody, vaccine and gene based drugs, in general may not be delivered using these routes because they might be susceptible to enzymatic degradation or cannot be absorbed into the systemic circulation efficiently due to molecular size and charge issues to be therapeutically effective. For this reason many protein and peptide drugs have to be delivered by injection or a Nano needle array. For example, many immunizations are based on the delivery of protein drugs and are often done by injection. Protein drugs delivered by injection can usually reach the extracellular space. Many approaches have been evaluated for targeting the intracellular space with protein drugs but delivering proteins into cells (e.g. into the cytosol) is still challenging.

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With Regards,

Sarah Jhonson

Editorial Assistant

Advances in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety