Polymeric Drug Delivery: Science & Application is designed to bridge the gap between industrial and academic researchers in drug delivery and the pharmaceutical industry because conferences focus one of these two aspects. The book covers three main topics of drug delivery: the use of particulate carriers to transport actives to specific sites within the body, the use of matrices to tailor release rates to drug specific needs, and technologies to engineer drug particles in a way that will improve their bioavailability. Polymeric materials are being used in all three areas, as carriers, matrices, or part of the formulation of drug particles. Following an overview, this volume describes in twenty chapters the use of carriers such as liposomes, micelles, dendrimers, emulsion droplets, nanoparticles, and yeast cells in the (targeted) delivery of poorly water-soluble drugs, small organic molecules, macromolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids, and metal ions for molecular imaging purposes. Different routes of application are described, including oral and transepithelial delivery.
