title: Drug delivery systems: Advanced technologies potentially applicable in personalized treatments.
abstract: Advanced drug delivery systems (DDS) present indubitable benefits for drug administration. Over the past three decades, new approaches have been suggested for the development of novel carriers for drug delivery. In this review, we describe general concepts and emerging research in this field based on multidisciplinary approaches aimed at creating personalized treatment for a broad range of highly prevalent diseases (e.g., cancer and diabetes). This review is composed of two parts. The first part provides an overview on currently available drug delivery technologies including a brief history on the development of these systems and some of the research strategies applied. The second part provides information about the most advanced drug delivery devices using stimuli-responsive polymers. Their synthesis using controlled-living radical polymerization strategy is described. In a near future it is predictable the appearance of new effective tailor-made DDS, resulting from knowledge of different interdisciplinary sciences, in a perspective of creating personalized medical solutions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Jorge F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Coelho
authors.forename: Paula C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Alves
authors.forename: Rosemeyre
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cordeiro
authors.forename: Ana C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.forename: Joana R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Góis
authors.forename: Maria H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Gil