title: Nanoparticles as drug carriers: current issues with in vitro testing.
abstract: Incorporation of nanotechnology in the field of drug delivery has created exciting opportunities for the purposeful design of nanocarriers with potentials such as targeted delivery or controlled release of the incorporated cargo, improvement of bioavailability and reduction of therapeutic side-effects. Prior to in vivo administration, nanocarriers should undergo a set of in vitro evaluation procedures to ensure their stability, safety, conformity and ability to fulfill the desired mission. In this paper, current issues with in vitro evaluation techniques used for nanocarrier characterization (assessment of particle size, surface charge, drug release and toxicity) will be discussed. Furthermore, sufficiency of in vitro evaluation procedures for the prediction of in vivo scenarios and the necessary considerations to improve the correlation between the two settings will be debated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, Institute of Pharmacy, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Maryam Alsadat
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Shetab Boushehri
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, Institute of Pharmacy, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.|Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Engineering (EA4267), University of Franche-Comté, Besançon, France.
authors.forename: Alf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lamprecht
mesh_terms: D004337:Drug Carriers; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D053758:Nanoparticles
chemical_list: D004337:Drug Carriers
keywords: drug incorporation; drug release; in vitro assessment procedures; nanocarriers; particle size; release kinetics; surface charge; toxicity