Advances in Hybrid Polymer-Based Materials for Sustained Drug Release

• Main Authors: Lígia N. M. Ribeiro, Ana C. S. Alcântara, Gustavo H. Rodrigues da Silva, Michelle Franz-Montan, Silvia V. G. Nista, Simone R. Castro, Verônica M. Couto, Viviane A. Guilherme, Eneida de Paula
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2017-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Polymer Science
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2017/1231464

The use of biomaterials composed of organic pristine components has been successfully described in several purposes, such as tissue engineering and drug delivery. Drug delivery systems (DDS) have shown several advantages over traditional drug therapy, such as greater therapeutic efficacy, prolonged delivery profile, and reduced drug toxicity, as evidenced by in vitro and in vivo studies as well as clinical trials. Despite that, there is no perfect delivery carrier, and issues such as undesirable viscosity and physicochemical stability or inability to efficiently encapsulate hydrophilic/hydrophobic molecules still persist, limiting DDS applications. To overcome that, biohybrid systems, originating from the synergistic assembly of polymers and other organic materials such as proteins and lipids, have recently been described, yielding molecularly planned biohybrid systems that are able to optimize structures to easily interact with the targets. This work revised the biohybrid DDS clarifying their advantages, limitations, and future perspectives in an attempt to contribute to further research of innovative and safe biohybrid polymer-based system as biomaterials for the sustained release of active molecules.