15 - Colloidal magnetic metal oxide nanocrystals and their applications in sustained drug release

Abstract

Drugs are essential life-saving molecules. They are taken up inside the human body to control physiological malfunctions. During the same time, the proper localization and excess use of these life-saving molecules should be controlled in order to avoid side effects. There are various methods in literature that deal with two sides of this issue. These are targeted release of the drug and sustained release of the drug. The research content is vast and sometimes it is difficult for starters to get an actual idea of the challenges incurred. In this chapter, we focus on the sustained release of drugs using colloidal magnetic nanoparticle-liposome composited. Recently, a new concept for drug delivery has come in attention which is nanoparticle driven. Smart hybrid liposomes have been designed containing functional nanoparticles as nanoscale therapeutics. These hybrid systems provide a means of dispersing and concentrating nanoparticles via encapsulation or binding, shielding them from biomolecular adsorption, and delivering them through established liposome targeting strategies. When loaded with drugs and nanoparticles, they resemble a classic liposome-drug formulation with additional functionality owing to the nanoparticles. Lipid vesicles have attracted growing interest for their potential applications as drug delivery. Drug release has been controlled by diffusion through the lipid bilayer, which is greatest when the bilayer is disrupted or phase separated (e.g., at the lipid main phase transition or melting temperature). Liposomes can lose a significant portion of their drug cargo in circulation, and upon arriving at a target site; the ability to control release can be poor. In order to solve this problem they have decorated liposomes with bound nanoparticles and then selective and local heating is supplied to the bilayer to control liposomal drug delivery. Magnetic liposomes have also been designed using a numbers of methods till now. The chapter also focus on a case study performed with Doxorubicin, an anticancer drug.