Delivering biologics to the disease sites with minimal distribution to normal tissue has been promising for diagnosis and treatment. However, the delivery of each class of biologics is often facing unique delivery problems such as short half-lives and trapping in endolysosomes during their journey inside the bloodstream and cell, respectively, before reaching the disease site. To circumvent these delivery challenges, researchers have created a myriad of delivery systems verging at the frontier of bioengineering, material science, and medicine, including organic (e.g., lipid nanoparticles, polymeric micelles, hydrogels), inorganic (e.g., quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, and gold nanoparticles), and hybrid (e.g., metal-organic frameworks) delivery platforms. Examples of biologics are also diverse including (i) peptidic-backbone biologics [peptides (e.g., glucagon-like peptide), proteins (e.g., insulin), enzymes (e.g., asparaginase, glucose oxidase etc.), antibodies (e.g., anti-PD1/PDL1, anti-CTLA4 mAbs etc.)]; (ii) nucleotide-based biologics [e.g., pDNA, mRNA, siRNA, miRNA, ASO, ribozymes etc.]; (iii) cell-based drug delivery systems such as live-cell therapies [e.g., CAR T-cells, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes etc.], cell membrane-camouflaged nanoparticles, and organelle-based biologics [e.g., exosomes]. Excitingly, some of them has been clinically approved (e.g., enzyme, antibody, and mRNA vaccine). However, unfortunately, sub-optimal treatment potency is still the mainstream because of low delivery efficacy.
In this Research Topic, we will focus on the delivery challenges associated with biologics, and the corresponding strategies to overcome the organ-, vascular-, subcellular-level barriers during their voyage in the body. In particular, we encourage the researchers to submit their reviews and original articles on the following topics:
(i) targetable and transcytosable delivery platforms for precision delivery;
(ii) preconditioning strategies for improved delivery including vascular leakiness enhancers, RES blockade for re-routing the cargoes, reprogramming pathophysiological micromilieu, immunological priming of ‘cold’ tumors to ‘hot’, and microbiota modulation for augmented therapy;
(iii) (bio)chemical programming of (nano)materials (e.g., stimuli-sensitive platforms, interaction at biointerface, in vivo fate including elimination pathways);
(iv) Biomedical applications (e.g., genome editing, immunotherapy, vaccines, contrasting agents);
(v) combinatorial therapeutic strategies for effective delivery (e.g., immuno-chemotherapy);
(vi) transport challenges and advantages of administrative routes including invasive (intravenous, subcutaneous, intramuscular etc.) and non-invasive routes (inhalation, transdermal, oral, buccal, nasal etc.);
(vii) Advances in breaching the delivery problems (e.g., microneedles, implants, jet injectors, electroporation, sonophoresis, iontophoresis- and ultrasound-devices etc.);
(viii) synergy between biologics and small-molecule drugs (e.g., (protein)antibody-drug conjugates, cytokine-antibody conjugates, cell membrane-camouflaged nanoparticles, and cellular-hitchhikers (backpacks) such as RBC-nanoparticle complexes;
(ix) advances in screening platforms (e.g., spheroids and organoids). Research concerned with not only disease treatment (e.g., cancer, fibrosis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and metabolic diseases) but also prevention of infectious diseases (e.g., COVID-19, flu, and HIV) are welcome.
We believe that this Research Topic could evolve the field of delivery not only from the chemo-physical perspective but also from an anatomical-(patho)physiological perspective, which could ultimately leverage the evolution of next-generation delivery platforms towards clinical translation.
Delivering biologics to the disease sites with minimal distribution to normal tissue has been promising for diagnosis and treatment. However, the delivery of each class of biologics is often facing unique delivery problems such as short half-lives and trapping in endolysosomes during their journey inside the bloodstream and cell, respectively, before reaching the disease site. To circumvent these delivery challenges, researchers have created a myriad of delivery systems verging at the frontier of bioengineering, material science, and medicine, including organic (e.g., lipid nanoparticles, polymeric micelles, hydrogels), inorganic (e.g., quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, and gold nanoparticles), and hybrid (e.g., metal-organic frameworks) delivery platforms. Examples of biologics are also diverse including (i) peptidic-backbone biologics [peptides (e.g., glucagon-like peptide), proteins (e.g., insulin), enzymes (e.g., asparaginase, glucose oxidase etc.), antibodies (e.g., anti-PD1/PDL1, anti-CTLA4 mAbs etc.)]; (ii) nucleotide-based biologics [e.g., pDNA, mRNA, siRNA, miRNA, ASO, ribozymes etc.]; (iii) cell-based drug delivery systems such as live-cell therapies [e.g., CAR T-cells, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes etc.], cell membrane-camouflaged nanoparticles, and organelle-based biologics [e.g., exosomes]. Excitingly, some of them has been clinically approved (e.g., enzyme, antibody, and mRNA vaccine). However, unfortunately, sub-optimal treatment potency is still the mainstream because of low delivery efficacy.
In this Research Topic, we will focus on the delivery challenges associated with biologics, and the corresponding strategies to overcome the organ-, vascular-, subcellular-level barriers during their voyage in the body. In particular, we encourage the researchers to submit their reviews and original articles on the following topics:
(i) targetable and transcytosable delivery platforms for precision delivery;
(ii) preconditioning strategies for improved delivery including vascular leakiness enhancers, RES blockade for re-routing the cargoes, reprogramming pathophysiological micromilieu, immunological priming of ‘cold’ tumors to ‘hot’, and microbiota modulation for augmented therapy;
(iii) (bio)chemical programming of (nano)materials (e.g., stimuli-sensitive platforms, interaction at biointerface, in vivo fate including elimination pathways);
(iv) Biomedical applications (e.g., genome editing, immunotherapy, vaccines, contrasting agents);
(v) combinatorial therapeutic strategies for effective delivery (e.g., immuno-chemotherapy);
(vi) transport challenges and advantages of administrative routes including invasive (intravenous, subcutaneous, intramuscular etc.) and non-invasive routes (inhalation, transdermal, oral, buccal, nasal etc.);
(vii) Advances in breaching the delivery problems (e.g., microneedles, implants, jet injectors, electroporation, sonophoresis, iontophoresis- and ultrasound-devices etc.);
(viii) synergy between biologics and small-molecule drugs (e.g., (protein)antibody-drug conjugates, cytokine-antibody conjugates, cell membrane-camouflaged nanoparticles, and cellular-hitchhikers (backpacks) such as RBC-nanoparticle complexes;
(ix) advances in screening platforms (e.g., spheroids and organoids). Research concerned with not only disease treatment (e.g., cancer, fibrosis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and metabolic diseases) but also prevention of infectious diseases (e.g., COVID-19, flu, and HIV) are welcome.
We believe that this Research Topic could evolve the field of delivery not only from the chemo-physical perspective but also from an anatomical-(patho)physiological perspective, which could ultimately leverage the evolution of next-generation delivery platforms towards clinical translation.