Self-assembly Delivery Targets in Pharmaceutical Industry

A number of studies have recently been conducted in thepharmaceutical industry to discover new methods forcuring specific diseases, chronic ailments, and geneticdisorders. Among these new methods, the use of deliveryvesicles has the most therapeutic effect and will improvedrug efficiency and patient compliance (1). To designsuch delivery systems, macromolecular self-assembledstructures should be exploited to engineer self-assembledmaterials for encapsulation to release at the target tissue.The production of such materials is based on the selfassemblingtechnique, and the elements of the systemget automatically together and form well-defined stablestructures under a thermodynamically equilibrated state.Different kinds of interactions such as electrostatic andhydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking,and other interactions ensure the structure that moleculesare wired at a stable low level of energy (2). A variety ofsuch macromolecular self-assembled materials have beengenerated through the years and tested successfully, andare recently common in therapeutic procedures (3). Thissuccess can be accounted as a highlighted pattern for asuccessful combination between physics and biology. Selfassembledmaterials, the creation of which roots in softmatter physics, could replace invasive surgical proceduresby localized treatments. The main reason for formingsuch self-assembled materials is non-covalent, weakinteractions, which form among the monomers to pushthe monomers for automatic assembly. The research inthis realm shows that micelles and vesicles from lipids andpolymers are most prevalent for drug-delivery systems(3). However, other applicable structures are reported,including tubules, fibrils, or other complex systems suchas molecular hydrogels for this purpose (4). The controlparameters of final assembled systems return to thestructure of monomers and the external condition, leadingto the occurrence of self-assembly in that environment.The temperature, pH, ionic strength of the solution, andconcentration of the system are among the parametersthat force the monomers to form one specific structure.Among these parameters, concentration is more easilytractable to find whether a structure is formed or not.Critical micelle concentration and temperature are thesigns below of which, there are separate monomers whilethe self-assemble structure begins to form at and abovethem (5). Some reports show extensive benefits of thesedrug-delivery vehicles as pharmaceutical agents. Forinstance, they are widely used in the treatment of cancer,small hydrophobic drugs (paclitaxel) (6), and for femalebirth control (levonorgestrel) (7) and pain killer or antiinflammatorycare (morphine) (8). Moreover, the resultsdemonstrate that diabetic drugs (9) and chronic hormonetreatments (10) take advantage of some protein- andpeptide-based products and can efficiently deliver thecontainers to the target tissue. The present and futurechallenges in this realm are more focused on improvingstability and optimizing performance in order to provideeffective treatments and patient compliance. This willnot happen unless physicists and biologists can furthercooperate more systematically.