Abstract
Self-assembled soft nanocarriers that are capable of simultaneous encapsulation of both lipophilic and water soluble payloads have significantly enhanced controlled delivery applications in biomedicine. These nanoarchitectures, such as liposomes, polymersomes and cubosomes, are primarily composed of either amphiphilic polymers or lipids, with the polymeric variants generally possessing greater stability and control over biodistribution and bioresponsive release. Polymersomes have long demonstrated such advantages over their lipid analogs, liposomes, but only recently have bicontinuous nanospheres emerged as a polymeric cubic phase alternative to lipid cubosomes. In this review, we summarize the current state of the field for bicontinuous nanosphere formulation and characterization and suggest future directions for this nascent delivery platform as it is adopted for biomedical applications.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 321-338 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Nanoscale Horizons |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2019 |
Funding
Dr Scott has been as an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University since the fall of 2013. He respectively received a BS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in 2002 and Washington University in St. Louis in 2009. As a Whitaker International Scholar, he spent four years in Switzerland at the EPFL performing postdoctoral research in the laboratories of Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell and Prof. Melody Swartz. Dr Scott is a recipient of the 2015 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the 2015 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the 2014 American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant. He was selected as a 2017 BMES Young Innovator of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering and a 2018 Nano Research Young Innovator in Nanobiotechnology. His laboratory is currently focused on the development of bioresponsive soft nanomaterials for applications in controlled drug delivery. Dr Bobbala is currently a Post- doctoral Fellow in Evan Scott’s lab at Northwestern University. He obtained his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Otago, New Zealand and the BPharm and MPharm (Industrial Pharmacy) from the Kakatiya University, India. His research interests are in the areas of nanobiomaterials, novel drug delivery systems and single-shot vaccine formulations. Sharan was the recipient of Prestigious University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship and Northwestern Postdoctoral Professional Development awards. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (Grant No. 1DP2HL132390-01) and the National Science Foundation (CAREER award No. 1453576).
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science