Drug Delivery using Nanoparticles :

Nanoparticles are small colloidal particles which are made of non-biodegradable

and biodegradable polymers. Their diameter is generally around 200 nm. One can
distinguish two types of nanoparticles ,nanospheres, which are matrix systems; and
nanocapsules, which are reservoir systems composed of a polymer membrane
surrounding an oily or aqueous core. This approach is attractive because the
methods of preparation of particles were simple and easy to scale-up. The particles
formed are stable and easily freeze-dried. Due to these reasons, nanoparticles made
of biodegradable polymers are developed for drug delivery. Indeed, nanoparticles
are able to achieve with success tissue targeting of many drugs (antibiotics,
cytostatics, peptides and proteins, nucleic acids, etc.). In addition, nanoparticles can
protect drugs against chemical and enzymatic degradation and can also able to
reduce side effects of some active drugs.
PHARMACEUTICAL APPLICATIONS OF NANOPARTICLES :
The application for the design of drug delivery systems can be made available by
the use of biodegradable polymers that were considered to be highly suitable for
human applications initially .At that time, the research on colloidal
carriers was mainly focusing on liposomes, but no one was able to produce stable
lipid vesicles suitable for clinical applications. In some cases, nanoparticles have
been shown to be more active than liposomes due to their better stability. This is the
reason why in the last decades many drugs (e.g., antibiotics, antiviral and
antiparasitic drugs, cytostatics, protein and
peptides) were associated to nanoparticles.