Molecular Systems for the Delivery of Drugs and Contrast Agents, 2nd Edition
A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 27 March 2026 | Viewed by 12
Special Issue Editors
Interests: coordination and organometallic chemistry; homogeneous catalysis; new inorganic materials; metal–organic frameworks (MOFs)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: advanced fluorescence spectroscopy techniques; molecular biophysics; spectroscopic evaluation and optimization of drugs and drug delivery systems; photosensitizers; amyloid aggregation; new materials; polymeric metal–organic compounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The effective and target-specific delivery of drugs within organisms is one of the new frontiers of pharmaceutical research, promising to enhance the in vivo safety and efficacy of virtually any candidate pharmaceutical active principle by improving its bioavailability while drastically reducing both systemic and local side effects through substantial reductions in both doses and non-specific tissue interactions. Similar considerations apply to compounds applied for diagnostic purposes, spanning from antigens to contrast agents for diagnostic tissue imaging.
The problem is being addressed by a wealth of diverse strategies. Drug delivery systems have developed in recent decades from initial cage-like shuttles capable of incorporating drugs, thereby improving their solubility in physiological media, and gradually releasing them in time (e.g., cyclodextrines, fullerenes, plain liposomes), to expressly designed shuttles endowed with increasingly complex systems for controlled drug release, specific targeting of pathological hallmarks, or both. In parallel, the design of molecular and supramolecular structures fused to the actual pharmaceutically active compound, encompassing moieties capable of targeting specific disease biomarkers and/or promoting intracellular uptake, has flourished.
This Special Issue of Pharmaceutics aims to be a showcase for (supra)molecular systems and shuttles of any kind devised for the smart delivery of molecules to biological tissues for either diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. Obviously, having no ambition to constitute an exhaustive panorama of the state of art in the field, we rather intend to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the reference community, with the hope of offering less sectorial points of view and, possibly, occasions to develop new networks. Accordingly, high-quality research articles covering a wealth of topics, including, but not limited to, biomarker- or biostructure-targeted pharmaceuticals, liposomes, phytosomes, micelles and other lipid-based nanoparticles, photo-switched drug compounds, systems for the controlled release of drugs, aptameric systems for disease hallmark recognition, DNA-origami-based drug shuttles, and metal and metal–organic nanoparticles of medicinal relevance, are welcomed, providing their originality and technical soundness. Well-documented reviews are also solicited, as they will help potential readers to orient themselves within this astonishingly heterogeneous field.
The deadline for submissions is 30th April 2026. Contributors are encouraged to send a tentative title and/or short abstract.
Dr. Angelo Maspero
Dr. Luca Nardo
Dr. Marco Lamperti
Guest Editors
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. Pharmaceuticals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2900 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.
Keywords
- biomarker-targeted drugs
- contrast media for diagnostic imaging
- drug delivery systems
- photoactivated drugs and photoswitches
- theranostics
- liposomes
- biomaterials-based drugs and drug shuttles (e.g., DNA origami)
- biomimetic materials
- nanoparticle applications to diagnostics and therapy
- in silico drug design
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