Materials Science for Drug Delivery

Catalog description

Drug delivery systems (DDS) are technologies that improve pharmacokinetics and biodistribution of drugs with the goal to enhance therapeutic efficacy and reduce side effects. Key to successful development of DDS is to design drug vehicles that can deliver controlled amounts of drugs to the sites of interest for required periods of time by overcoming the challenges due to the complexity of biological systems. With the evolution of materials science and nanotechnology, a wide variety of materials ranging from polymeric or inorganic nanomaterials, hydrogels, bioresponsive/biomimetic/bioinspired materials, and micro/nanofabricated devices have been developed to fulfill the need for achieving maximum therapeutic outcomes of pharmaceutics. The course will be designed to present the importance of integrating the knowledge and technologies of materials science, engineering, chemistry, biology, medicine and life science to advance this interdisciplinary research field. In addition, it will discuss how the developed technologies provide innovative approaches to translate basic knowledge into healthcare technologies. For this purpose, the course will first focus on the principles of drug therapy, therapeutic targets and requirements for designing drug delivery systems. It will also cover the general aspects of interaction with materials with biological systems, including relationships between properties of materials and their interactions with proteins, blood, and cells, clearance of materials in the body, and strategies to design materials to avoid these foreign body responses. These points will be explained from the viewpoint of materials scientists, chemists, and engineers. The course will also discuss the applications of different types of materials for drug delivery, including polymeric nanomaterials, organic-inorganic hybrid materials, hydrogels and microfabricated devices. In this part of the course, the historical overview as well as recent research progress in this field will be discussed to explain the strategies and methodologies to develop new materials for a wide variety of therapeutics including chemotherapeutics, nucleic acids, proteins, bioimaging reagents, reactive oxygen species and gaseous signal transmitters. Furthermore, the course will discuss the current challenges in the drug delivery research field, and future directions. Throughout the course, recent research papers will be presented to discuss the on-going research in this field, and develop the ability to read scientific articles critically.