Fluorocarbons and Fluorosurfactants for In Vivo Oxygen Transport (Blood Substitutes), Imaging, and Drug Delivery

Abstract

The development of biomaterials to treat, repair, or reconstruct the human body is an increasingly important component of materials research. Collaboration between materials researchers and their industrial and clinical partners is essential for the development of this complex field. To demonstrate the importance of these interactions, two articles in this issue focus on advances in biomaterials relating to the use of colloidal systems for transport, drug delivery, and other medical applications. These articles were coordinated by Dominique Muster (Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg) and Franz Burny (Hôpital Erasme, Brussels). The following is the first of these two articles.A large variety of colloidal Systems involving highly fluorinated components have been prepared and investigated in recent years. These fluorinated Systems comprise diverse ty pes of emulsions (e.g., direct, reverse, and multiple emulsions; microemulsions; gel emulsions; waterless emulsions) with a fluorocarbon phase (and often a fluorinated Surfactant), and a ränge of self-assemblies (vesicles, tubules, helices, ribbons, etc.) made from fluorinated amphiphiles. Fluorinated Langmuir films and fluorinated black lipid membranes (BLMs) also have been investigated.Research in this area was driven by the potential applications of such materials in medicine and biology. Fluorocarbon-based products are being developed as injectable oxygen carriers (“blood Substitutes”), media for liquid Ventilation, drug delivery Systems, and contrast agents for ultrasound imaging. One such agent has recently been approved for use in Europe and the United States. Several more products are in an advanced stage of clinical evaluation, and others are in various stages of preclinical development. From a more fundamental Standpoint, these materials are being investigated for assessing and understanding the impact that fluorinated components have on the formation, stability, structure, and properties of colloida l Systems in comparison with their hydrocarbon counterparts. The attention given to fluorinated colloids prompted the synthesis of numerous new families of fluorinated amphiphiles, which were to become components of such colloids.