Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 16, Issue 7, 2015

The combination of biomaterials and drug delivery strategies is a promising avenue towards improved synthetic bone substitutes. With the delivery of active species biomaterials can be provided with the bioactivity they still lack for improved bone regeneration. Recently, a lot of research efforts have been put towards this direction. Biomaterials for bone regeneration have been supplemented with small or biological molecules for Read More

Hydrogels have been employed as an emerging and promising tool in tissue engineering. They find application in the interdisciplinary field that applies the basic principles of biology and engineering and act as a substitute for conventional tissue engineering materials having improved and restored tissue function. This review article discusses the important characteristic properties of polymers used for the synthesis of hydro Read More

Protein, gene, and small molecule therapies hold great potential for facilitating comprehensive tissue repair and regeneration. However, their clinical value will rely on effective delivery systems which maximize their therapeutic benefit. Significant advances have been made in recent years towards biomaterial delivery systems to satisfy this clinical need. Here we summarize the most outstanding advances in drug delivery te Read More

“There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that wound healing in chronic diabetic foot ulcers is growth factor dependent, and that the therapeutic delivery of these growth factors to wounds topically, has the potential ability to accelerate wound healing in conjunction with conventional wound care”. There is, however, confusion about the utility of platelet rich plasma because the studies that have evaluated Read More

In this review, recent advances in biomaterials developed to favor tissue repair are presented. The focus is particularly on devices used to promote bone repair, skin wound healing and nerve regeneration. In each case, the specifications for an ideal substitute and the recent advances in the field of these biomaterials are presented. Alternatively, drug delivery systems associated with biomaterials have been developed over the re Read More

In the last few years several technologies are being developed for eventually repairing or replacing damaged or injured tissues and even organs. Some of these emerging technologies include the design and development of new biomaterials, the optimization of nano- and micro-technologies for drug and cell delivery, the use of autologous proteins or the application of stem cells as therapeutics. Thus, several types of stem cel Read More

Gene therapy is a promising strategy to deliver growth factors of interest locally in a sustained fashion and has the potential to overcome barriers to using recombinant protein therapy such as sustainability and cost. Recent studies demonstrate the safety and efficacy of non-viral delivery of plasmid DNA (pDNA) encoding a single growth factor to enhance bone healing. This pilot study is aimed at testing a non-viral gene delive Read More

Non-porous bare silica nanoparticles, amine modified silica nanoparticles and mesoporous particles, were evaluated as carriers for sodium ibandronate. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by SEM, TEM, DLS and porosity. Then, their capacity to incorporate a bisphosphonate drug (sodium ibandronate) and the in vitro release behavior was analyzed by capillary electrophoresis. Mesoporous and Read More