Engineering precision nanoparticles for drug delivery
- Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2021 Feb;20(2):101-124. doi: 10.1038/s41573-020-0090-8.
- 1. Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [email protected].
- 2. Abramson Cancer Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [email protected].
- 3. Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [email protected].
- 4. Cardiovascular Institute, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [email protected].
- 5. Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [email protected].
- 6. Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
- 7. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
- 8. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. [email protected].
- 9. Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. [email protected].
- 10. Department of Pediatrics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. [email protected].
- 11. Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. [email protected].
- 12. Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. [email protected].
- 13. Department of Chemical Engineering and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. [email protected].
In recent years, the development of nanoparticles has expanded into a broad range of clinical applications. Nanoparticles have been developed to overcome the limitations of free therapeutics and navigate biological barriers - systemic, microenvironmental and cellular - that are heterogeneous across patient populations and diseases. Overcoming this patient heterogeneity has also been accomplished through precision therapeutics, in which personalized interventions have enhanced therapeutic efficacy. However, nanoparticle development continues to focus on optimizing delivery platforms with a one-size-fits-all solution. As lipid-based, polymeric and inorganic nanoparticles are engineered in increasingly specified ways, they can begin to be optimized for Drug Delivery in a more personalized manner, entering the era of precision medicine. In this Review, we discuss advanced nanoparticle designs utilized in both non-personalized and precision applications that could be applied to improve precision therapies. We focus on advances in nanoparticle design that overcome heterogeneous barriers to delivery, arguing that intelligent nanoparticle design can improve efficacy in general delivery applications while enabling tailored designs for precision applications, thereby ultimately improving patient outcome overall.