Advances in Liver-Targeted Delivery

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, the escalating prevalence of liver disease has imposed a growing health and socioeconomic burden on various countries across the globe. Approximately 2 million deaths per annum, constituting 4% of global mortality, are attributed to liver disease. In the United States, more than 100 million individuals have various forms of liver disease, with approximately 1.8% of U.S. adults (4.5 million) being diagnosed annually, resulting in 57,000 deaths per year.

Promising progress has been achieved in managing liver diseases such as liver cancer, ALD, NASH, HBV and HCV, among others, over the past few decades. Common approaches include systemic drug delivery (intravenous or oral) or localized drug delivery (TACE), which have demonstrated moderate therapeutic outcomes. There remains an urgent need to develop targeted therapies for patients with liver diseases such as liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma to achieve treatment effects. Prominent strides have been made in biomaterials and nanomedicine, employing diverse targeted therapy approaches designed to deliver drugs and genetic materials to distinct liver cell types afflicted by various diseases. The advent of innovative lipid-based, polymeric, and inorganic nanoparticles, PLGA nanoparticles, liposomes and micelles, alongside gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR/Cas9 or mRNA vaccines and siRNA, mediated through functionalized nanoparticles, holds immense potential in significantly improving therapeutic outcomes for liver diseases. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews related to the topic mentioned above are welcome.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ling Li
Guest Editor

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• liver disease
• drug delivery
• target therapy
• nanomedicine
• biomaterials
• nanoparticle
• lipid nanoparticle
• gene edit
• mRNA vaccine
• CRISPR/Cas9