Photocontrolled Therapeutic Activation in Chemistry, Biology and Drug Delivery

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past decade, light-controlled activation has been established as one of most enabling approaches in the spatial and temporal control of biological and drug delivery systems. It involves either a photoactivatable linker or prodrug strategy in which a molecular probe, ligand, drug or biomolecule is temporarily inactivated or converted to a prodrug form through photocleavable linker attachment (caged) or photoresponsive bond integration. Applications of such photoactivation strategies have led to significant advances in numerous fields, ranging from pharmaceuticals, chemical biology, optogenetics, photopharmacology, and nanodrug delivery to nanotheranostics.

However, despite such promising advances, their optimal design still remains challenging as it requires in-depth understanding in multiple disciplines and making the right selections in photocage types, wavelength selectivity, linker chemistry, and release or activation mechanism. This would be effectively addressed by discussing existing methods and gathering critical insights in a topical issue as proposed here. This Special Issue entitled “Photocontrolled Activation in Chemistry, Biology, Drug Delivery, and Nanomedicine” therefore aims to serve as a forum for review articles and original research reports on advances in photoactivation technologies, photobiological probes, photoactivatable prodrug strategies, and their applications in nanodrug delivery and theranostic systems. Topics of relevance include but are not limited to:

• Synthesis of photocaged ligands and drug molecules, and their controlled activation;
• Synthetic chemistry of photocleavable linkers and cages;
• Optogenetic probes and their model systems in vitro and in vivo;
• Photocontrolled DNA hybridization, gene regulation, and biomedical applications;
• Photocontrolled therapeutic release in targeted (passive, active) nanosystems;
• Photoresponseive molecules and their pharmacology applications;
• Photoresponsive nanomaterials and their applications in nanotheranostics.

Dr. Seok Ki Choi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Nanotheranostics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• photocaged linkers and prodrugs
• optogenetic probes and model systems
• photocontrolled biomolecular systems
• photocontrolled pharmacology
• photocontrolled drug delivery
• photonanomedicine
• nanotheranostics