Hydrogels for dermal and transdermal drug delivery.

A painless and non-invasive method to deliver drugs using dermal and transdermal administration routes has been expanding for more than 30 years as it reduces the risk of drug overdoses that can be associated with oral administrations or injections. To understand the particularities of this drug delivery pathway, we will present a rapid review of the skin, including its structure and the parameters that influence drug diffusion into it, and then discuss the strategies that improve dermal drug delivery. Of the multitude of existing systems used for topical dermal and transdermal applications, this review will focus on the breakthroughs in drug delivery systems made of hydrogels.

Sealing hyaluronic acid microgels with oppositely-charged polypeptides: A simple strategy for packaging hydrophilic drugs with on-demand release.

A simple route to deliver on demand hydrosoluble molecules such as peptides, packaged in biocompatible and biodegradable microgels, is presented. Hyaluronic acid hydrogel particles with a controlled structure are prepared using a microfluidic approach. Their porosity and their rigidity can be tuned by changing the crosslinking density.