Interfacial Phenomena in Drug Delivery and Targeting PDF

PREFACE TO THE SERIES

This book series aims to provide a comprehensive survey for senior undergraduates, graduates and established workers carrying out research in drug delivery and targeting in its many facets. Both drug delivery technologies and targeting grow in scope and potential, as well as complexity, almost daily. New opportunities arise through the development of new materials for the design and fabrication of drug delivery vehicles and carriers; new challenges are posed by the discovery and development of new therapeutic agents, which include not only small organic and inorganic molecules but macromolecules frequendy with no natural propensity for transport across biological barriers. The series has to date covered delivery technologies in microencapsulation,1 liposomal delivery2 and the promotion of absorption:3 however, the technology is not dealt with in isolation, but in the context of the biological environment in which delivery vehicles will operate in vivo.

This volume treats the fundamental and applied aspects of interfaces in drug delivery and targeting. The understanding of surface interactions is vital not only to the rational design of novel delivery systems but also to more conventional dosage forms. Wherever there are surfaces of solids or liquids, or wherever phases are mixed and colloids are present, surfaces loom large. This comprehensive text by Dr Buckton will be a valuable addition to the literature and is unique in that it specifically addresses the interfacial chemistry of delivery systems.

Other subjects to be covered in volumes in preparation include drug delivery to the lung and the timely topic of the oral administration and absorption of proteins and peptides. We intend also to deal with topics such as the delivery of endogenous molecules, vaccines and new materials for fabricating nanoparticles, microparticles and other constructs for the delivery of molecules which require specialized treatment for successful therapeutic intervention.

Drexler4 talks of conventional drug delivery as somewhat haphazard. “Drugs are dumped into the body, tumble and bump around in solution haphazardly until they bump a target molecule, fit and stick....” He proposes that the future of therapy will consist of nanomachines which will gain access to diseased sites, recognize the target, disassemble damaged parts, rebuild and reassemble. We are perhaps still some way from that vision, but the progress that is made step by step is the stuff of research in drug delivery and targeting. It is the role of a book series to record and analyse that progress, and we hope that this series will achieve those aims and provide some stimulus for further discovery.

Author: Ichiro Suzuki