Chapter 20 - Bioinspired drug delivery therapeutics

Abstract

The field of drug delivery still attracts great interest among both scientists and clinicians. In recent decades, bioinspired drug delivery strategies have been deeply researched, what led to valuable information and, more importantly, to the development of drug-based delivery systems for biomedical applications. Synthetic drug carriers based on polymers, liposomes, solid lipids, or micelles offer great advantages for therapeutic payload release mainly due to their physico-chemical properties, biocompatibility, and lack of immune response. These delivery systems are able to load and encapsulate a large variety of drugs and promote their controlled and tailored release, as a therapeutic tool against several diseases. On this way, relevant achievements have been made on nanomedicine field, with the opening of new routes for clinical translation. Furthermore, the application of parts of cells or whole cells in drug delivery has also been greatly explored. The favorable characteristics displayed by cell-based systems such as the easy recognition by biological entities, or the specific response to biological signals, are on the basis of the design/development of engineered cell carriers. Therefore we have assisted to a crescent growth of biomimetic delivery systems; these drug carriers have been conceived including surface functionalization with amino acids or lipids, or with biological ligands. Cell membrane-coated nanosystems and exosome-based drug vehicles have been developed leading to promising therapeutic advances. In addition, the ability displayed by cells in situ to deliver therapeutic cargo in a specific and target manner has been also addressed. The therapeutic value of this approach has been stated by several scientists worldwide, who also provide new challenges ahead.