Recent Advances in Peptide and Protein-Based Drug Delivery Systems
A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Delivery and Controlled Release".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 October 2025 | Viewed by 751
Special Issue Editor
Interests: drug delivery system; engineered nanomaterials; natural drugs; zein; process engineering; oral administration
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Peptide and protein-based materials have attracted significant interest in drug delivery in the past decade. They provide numerous advantages over other carriers, namely biodegradability, wide availability, environmental tolerance, and high drug binding capacity. Most of them are amphiphilic and can readily self-assemble into particles with various structures, such as nanoparticles, nanofibers, micelles, and hydrogels. Moreover, passive targeting based on macromolecular proteins and active targeting mediated by targeting peptides can decrease the drug toxicity and enhance therapeutic effects. Also, their properties can be modified by incorporating them with other biopolymers and/or conjugating with targeting ligands.
Up to now, many peptide and protein-based drug delivery systems (DDSs) have been prepared to improve the pharmacological and therapeutic properties of conventional (“free”) drugs, including poor aqueous solubility, instability, low bioavailability, serious adverse effects, and lack of targeted delivery. Although many encouraging results have been obtained, there are still some limitations that remain to be considered before their clinical applications, such as immunogenicity, the manufacturing procedures, quality control, and in vivo fate. Therefore, further research and efforts are required to maximize the use of peptide and protein-based materials in pharmaceutics.
This Special Issue aims to highlight the current progress in the preparation, physicochemical characterization, and in vitro/in vivo performances of peptide and protein-based DDSs. Original research and review articles assessing the potential and limitations of various peptide and protein-based DDSs are welcome.
Dr. Guijin Liu
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- drug delivery systems
- protein
- peptide
- nanotechnology
- targeted delivery
- nanocomposites
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