Non-viral Vectors for Cancer Therapy

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer has many facets, and these are tackled by various methods including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and immunotherapy. Cancer gene therapy refers to the transfer of nucleic acids into cancer cells and the surrounding tissue to cause cell death or slow the cancer growth. In this context, non-viral vectors show good results due to their low cost, safety, and availability. This Special Issue will focus on the recent developments regarding the use of various types of non-viral vectors for cancer and cancer gene management. Plasmid (pDNA), messenger RNA (mRNA), oligonucleotides, and RNA interference approaches (siRNA, shRNA, miRNA) are of great interest to be introduced into various vehicles such as polysaccharides (chitosan, alginate, pectin), proteins (silk fibroin, silk sericin), synthetic polymers (PLA, PLGA, PVA), and lipids (liposomes, lipid nanoparticles).

Polymers are one of the most versatile materials in the fight against cancer. They are easy to obtain, can be modified to better fit the application, and can be transformed into complex nanostructures with increased biocompatibility and endocytosis. Furthermore, polymers and polymeric systems can deliver drugs with tunable pharmacokinetics and circulation times. A special focus is on the polymeric materials which are stimuli-responsive, lipids, dendrimers, or macromolecules for intracellular delivery of drugs. Cancer involves a multiple stimuli approach, therefore, multi-stimuli responsiveness is very important to design and develop custom structures in cancer cell management.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to: non-viral vectors based on polymers, proteins, polysaccharides, liposomes, lipid nanoparticles, dendrimers, lipoplexes, polyplexes. It is our pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers and reviews are all welcome.

Prof. Dr. Catalin Zaharia
Dr. Ionut-Cristian Radu
Guest Editors

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• polymers
• polymeric nanoparticles
• hydrogels
• liposomes
• lipid nanoparticles
• polysaccharides
• non-viral vector
• cancer therapy
• cancer gene therapy