About this Research Topic
According to the World Health Organization, cancer was responsible for close to 9.6 million deaths in 2018. Worldwide, about 1 in 6 deaths is caused by cancer, with low- and middle-income countries accounting for 70 % of deaths. Thus, it is essential to find therapies to treat the diverse types of cancer that could be afforded, particularly by people in those countries. In recent years, it has been observed a growing interest to carry out research with the aim of incorporating microemulsions (MEs) and inorganic nanostructures (INs) for cancer treatment. Specifically, current research in anticancer drug development is focused on targeted drug delivery to improve pharmacokinetics, bioavailability, decrease toxicity, lower dose administration, and minimizing systemic side effects. Both types of nanodevices, MEs and INs, possess unique properties that enable their advantageous use as drug carriers for controlled and targeted drug delivery applications, particularly cancer treatment.
Low bioavailability of pharmaceutical dosage forms currently used for tumorous cancer treatments is a major problem that requires attention to improve effectiveness of the drugs used in modern chemotherapy. Further, important inconveniencies in cancer treatment are the systemic toxicity of commonly used anticancer drugs, low intake by tumors, and non-specific targeting. Two interesting approaches to overcome these drawbacks are the use of microemulsions and inorganic nanostructures as drug carriers due to their unique physicochemical characteristics, facile preparation, biocompatibility, and excellent storage stability. The goal of this Research Topic is to report advances in the fields, including aspects associated with the intriguing fundamental problems in the synthesis and applications of these most interesting nanodevices.
The scope of this Research Topic is to cover current, promising, recent, and novel research trends in the areas of biocompatible microemulsions and nanostructures as efficient drug carriers and delivery nanodevices. Contributions to this Research Topic are invited as original research, review, and mini-review articles reporting, but not restricted to:
• Synthesis of biocompatible microemulsions.
• Green synthesis of biocompatible inorganic nanostructures.
• Tumor targeted drug delivery from nanodevices.
• Intelligent nanodevices for drug release and delivery.
• Synthesis of novel biocompatible surfactants to prepare microemulsions.
• Modelling of drug release.
• Novel characterization techniques for nanostructures and microemulsions.
Keywords: Biocompatible Microemulsions, Biocompatible Nanostructures, Targeted Drug Delivery, Drug Release, Biocompatible Surfactants
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
