Polymer Matrix Drug Delivery System

Dear Colleagues,

In most cases, a drug delivery method depends on the nature of the drug itself regarding its ability to penetrate the multilayer biofilm in order to reach the target site for drug delivery. In the treatment of diseases such as encephalitis, some injected drugs also penetrate the body and must pass through the blood–brain barrier in order to achieve medicinal effects. In the process of delivery, drugs are inevitably metabolized by biological enzymes located on the mitochondria of cells, which reduces the target concentration of the prototype drug and study. One of the basic problems of modern formulations is to improve the stability of drugs by means of delivery and to use delivery to improve traditional dosage forms. Commonly used delivery methods include polymer grafting of small-molecule drugs; inclusion technology using cyclodextrin and its derivatives; improvement of lipid solubility of small-molecule drugs; the preparation of liposomes; drug microencapsulation; microsomal drug loading, etc. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. Currently, traditional preparations can no longer meet the demands of modern pharmaceuticals in reaching stable blood concentrations. Slow-release and controlled-release technologies for drugs have gradually become one of the main research topics in the development of modern pharmaceuticals. In modern preparations, complex polymers and their dopants or structural modification products of polymers are often used to adjust the growth of small-molecule drugs from high to low. The transfer within the molecular network achieves the effect of controlling the release rate of small molecules.

Polymer materials have higher molecular weight and can hold small molecules by themselves. There are many types of polymer functional groups; the possibility of structural modification is great, and different functions can be provided. Biopolymer materials have low toxicity or are non-toxic. Polymer materials have stable properties, is easy to process, and can be used as an implantable, sustained, and controlled release drug carrier. Polymer materials have excellent thermal properties and strong corrosion resistance; it also has stable expansion and is safe to use in the blood circulatory system and is not prone to blockage. The synthesized polymer has stable performance and is not prone to antibody–antigen reaction resulting in tissue disease. Thus, polymers have played and will continue to play a central role in drug delivery.

This Special Issue aims to review the current state-of-the-art findings concerning polymeric drug delivery systems and also aims to envision future perspectives. The topical subjects to be addressed include the following: synthetic polymers; natural polymers; bioconjugation of polymers; smart polymers; amphiphilic polymers; bioactive polymers; the dynamics of polymers crossing biological barriers; targeted drug delivery; polymers as drugs, etc.

Prof. Dr. Young-Joon Park
Guest Editor

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