Chitosan-Alginate Microcapsules Provide Gastric Protection and Intestinal Release of ICAM-1-Targeting Nanocarriers, Enabling GI Targeting In Vivo.

When administered intravenously, active targeting of drug nanocarriers (NCs) improves biodistribution and endocytosis. Targeting may also improve oral delivery of NCs to treat gastrointestinal (GI) pathologies or for systemic absoption. However, GI instability of targeting moieties compromises this strategy.

Polymer-based oral peptide nanomedicines.

Oral peptide delivery has been one of the major challenges of pharmaceutical sciences as it could lead to a great improvement of classical therapies, such as insulin, alongside making an important number of new therapies feasible. Successful oral delivery needs to fulfill two key tasks: to protect the macromolecules from degradation in the GI tract and to shuttle them across the intestinal epithelium in a safe and efficient fashion. Over the last decade, there have been numerous approaches based on the chemical modification of peptides and on the use of permeation enhancers, enzyme inhibitors and drug-delivery systems.

Alginate films as macromolecular imprinted matrices.

Macromolecularly imprinted polymers have been developed to mimic the non-covalent interactions driving molecular recognition in nature. The creation of an engineered antibody mimic would allow for the development of customizable films for biomolecular sensing. To demonstrate this principle, a cross-linked alginate film has been imprinted with bovine serum albumin (BSA) using aqueous biocompatible gelation methods.

Immobilization of mesenchymal stem cells and monocytes in biocompatible microcapsules to cell therapy.

The aim of cell therapy is to replace, repair, or enhance the function of damaged tissues or organs. Several factors complicate the development of cellular therapies. Of primary importance is protection of the implanted cells from the host's immune system.