Micelles therapeutic drug delivery

Kataoka and co-workers and the Eisenberg group pioneered the use of polymeric micelles in drug delivery applications [93-96]. The Kataoka group prepared copolymer micelles with the concept that these should exhibit properties similar to those of natural drug delivery systems - that is viruses. However, unlike viruses, multi-component micelles coated with polyethylene glycol are fully biocompatible and cannot be identified inside the body as foreign substances. It was found that therapeutic molecules could be inserted, such... 

Fig. 4 Novel drug delivery systems using stimuli-responsive polymers, (a) Morphology changes of poly(2-isopropyl- 2-oxazoline) (PiPrOx) and poly(benzyl ether)dendrons dendritic-linear block copolymers conjugates are Temperature- and pH-dependent.[105] (Copyright 2012, Royal Society of Chemistry) (b) Protein-binding-induced disassembly of dendron-based micelles. This inducible micelle disassembly is selective to the targeted protein and the disassembly can mediate release of the encapsulated therapeutic drugs.[106] (Copyright 2010, American Chemical Society)...

Dendrimers are small (typically less than lOnm in diameter) in comparison to other drug-delivery vehicles such as linear polymers, micelles (50-200 nm), and liposomes (100-1000nm). The small size results in rapid renal filtration and elimination via the urine compared to larger carriers. To reach an effective therapeutic concentration of the drug in the tumor tissue, a dendritic drug carrier needs to balance kidney clearance and elimination via the fiver and reticuloendothelial system (RES) against the passive accumulation resulting from the EPR effect. RES clearance is more pronoimced for... 

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