Nanoparticulate drug carrier systems

MJ Alonso. Nanoparticulate drug carrier technology. In S Cohen, H Bernstein, eds. Microparticulate Systems for the Delivery of Proteins and Vaccines. New York Marcel Dekker, 1996, pp 203-242. 

Vauthier C, Fattal E, Labarre D (2004). From polymer chemistry and physicochemis-try to nanoparticulate drug carrier design and applications. In Yaszemski M J, Trantolo D J, Lewandrowski K V, et al. (eds.). Tissue Engineering and Novel Delivery System Marcel Dekker, New York, pp. 562-598. 

A novel nanoparticulate lipid-based carrier system was developed by Mumper et al. at the University of Kentucky. ° This carrier system is composed of a lipophilic-emulsifying wax such as cetyl alcohol/ polysorbate 60 and other surfactants such as Brij 72, Brij 78, and Tween 80. The nanoparticles were formed through a warm microemulsion technique where encapsulates have included paclitaxel and plasmid DNA. The emulsification process is spontaneous, and cooling of the emulsion causes solidification of the nanoparticle-containing drug. This novel carrier has shown high efficiency in drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier. 

Drug release can be defined as the fraction of drug released from the nanoparticulate system as a function of time after the system has been administered [203]. The release of drug from nanoparticles depends on the location and physical state of the drug loaded into the colloidal carrier [133]. The drug can be released by ... 

Classic in vitro cell culture models were used earlier to test the permeability of drugs themselves (9). Nowadays, these systems display not only an alternative to animal testing in respect to ethical concerns, but are also applied as advanced models to develop new delivery strategies and to study drug delivery properties of nanoparticulate carriers or chemical delivery enhancers. Thereby, interactions with the biological barrier, specifically binding, uptake, and transport can be evaluated in a well-defined and standardized system. While oral delivery of drugs is still the commonly used and most accepted method of choice due to the... 

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