Device Design: Functional Polymers for Drug Delivery

Abstract

To satisfy the increasing needs for improved delivery devices, chemical engineering seeks to create synthetic, three-dimensional scaffolds made from polymeric materials, incorporating drugs to induce new tissue formation. Materials science, in conjunction with biotechnology, can satisfy these needs by developing artificial, synthetic substitutes and organ implants. In particular, recent advances in polymer science have provided several innovations, underlining the increasing importance of macromolecules in this field. As presented in previous chapters the main phenomenon in release studies is represented by diffusion that, as we know, works in extremely small time scale. Indeed, often the high diffusion rates of drugs limit the delivery possibilities to high steric hindrance molecules. Hence, scaffold ability to delay release rate is a key point and, in this framework, orthogonal chemistry has led the field of biomaterial science into a new area of selective, versatile and biocompatible nature. In particular, the possibility to modify and functionalize scaffolds with linkers bonded with drugs that are able to improve release performances open new opportunities for researchers. In this chapter, we seek to emphasize recent endeavors of exploiting this versatile chemistry toward the development of new drug delivery devices.