Micro- and nanocarriers by electrofludodynamic technologies for cell and molecular therapies

Abstract

Abstract Electrofluidodynamic technologies (EFDTs) are receiving attention in the biomedical field as high-throughput technologies to encapsulate different types of molecules for cell and drug delivery. In this study, we propose an overview of the most cutting-edge approaches based on EFDTs to create, process and assemble biomaterials in the form of micro-/nanoparticles with unique and intriguing properties for different biomedical applications. After a brief description of the basic mechanisms involved in the formation of microparticles – by electrodynamic atomization (EDA) or nanoparticles – by electrodynamic spraying (EDS), we propose a critical review of the main applications of EFDTs in different biomedical fields (e.g., drug delivery, regenerative medicine and diagnostic/theranostic applications) so as to highlight the role of materials and process conditions. In this way, we discuss the potential of EFDTs to design a large set of smart microscale devices (i.e., nanoparticles, capsules, multicompartment systems, microgels, and microscaffolds) suitable to successfully face new challenges of nanomedicine (i.e., cancer targeting) and tissue regeneration (i.e., cell or molecular printing).