Smart Nanovesicles for Drug Targeting and Delivery

Nanovesicles are highly-promising systems for the delivery and/or targeting of drugs, biomolecules and contrast agents. Despite the fact that initial studies in this area were performed on phospholipid vesicles, there is an ever-increasing interest in the use of other molecules to obtain smart vesicular carriers focusing on strategies for targeted delivery. These systems can be obtained using newly synthesized smart molecules, or by intelligent design of opportune carriers to achieve specific delivery to the site of action.

The drug/contrast agent-containing vesicles need to be directed to precise locations within the body to obtain desired magnitude and duration of the therapeutic or diagnostic effect. This spatial control in the delivery might open new avenues to modulate drug activity while avoiding side-effects and to optimize contrast agent properties while avoiding a broad distribution in the organism. However, delivering and targeting active substances into specific tissues and cells is still a challenge in designing novel therapeutic approaches against untreatable disorders, such as tumors and degenerative diseases.