TITLE:
Electrospun nanofiber-based drug delivery systems
AUTHORS:
Deng-Guang Yu, Li-Min Zhu, Kenneth White, Chris Branford-White
KEYWORDS:
Electrospinning; Nanofibers; Drug Delivery Systems; Controlled Release
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.1 No.2,
September
28,
2009
ABSTRACT: Electrospinning is a very simple and versatile process by which polymer nanofibers with di-ameters ranging from a few nanometers to sev-eral micrometers can be produced using an electrostatically driven jet of polymer solution or polymer melt. Significant progress has been made in this process throughout the past few years and electrospinning has advanced its ap-plications in many fields, including pharmaceu-tics. Electrospun nanofibers show great prom-ise for developing many types of novel drug delivery systems (DDS) due to their special characteristics and the simple but useful and effective top-down fabricating process. The current state of electrospun nanofiber-based DDS is focused on drug-loaded nanofiber preparation from pharmaceutical and biode-gradable polymers and different types of DDS. However, there are more opportunities to be exploited from the electrospinning process and the corresponding drug-loaded nanofibers for drug delivery. Additionally, some other related challenges and the possible resolutions are outlined in this review.