Smart Nanovesicles for Drug Targeting and Delivery

Call for Papers

Nanovesicles are highly promising systems for the delivery and/or targeting of drugs, biomolecules, and contrast agents. Despite the fact that initial studies in this area were performed on phospholipid vesicles, there is an ever-increasing interest in the use of other molecules to obtain smart vesicular carriers focusing on strategies for targeted delivery. These systems can be obtained by using newly synthesized smart molecules or by intelligent design of opportune carriers to achieve specific delivery to the site of action.

The drug/contrast agent-containing vesicles need to be directed to precise locations within the body to obtain desired magnitude and duration of the therapeutic or diagnostic effect. This spatial control in the delivery might open new avenues to modulate drug activity while avoiding side-effects and to optimize contrast agent properties while avoiding a broad distribution in the organism. However, delivering and targeting active substances into specific tissues and cells is still a challenge in designing novel therapeutic approaches against untreatable disorders such as tumors and degenerative diseases.

The main focus of this special issue will be on advanced pharmaceutical and diagnostic nanovesicles-related researches in the healthcare area.

This special issue will become an international forum for researchers to summarize the most recent developments and ideas in the field, with a special emphasis given to the technical and observational results obtained within the last five years including: original high-quality research articles and scholarly reviews.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Surfactant, polymeric, and phospholipid vesicles
• Catanionic vesicles
• Exosomes
• Characterization design and development of smart nanovesicles
• Stimuli responsive carriers (e.g., pH- or temperature-sensitive vesicles)
• Vesicles' stability in biological environments
• Intracellular drug delivery—pathways and applications
• Vesicles for active and passive targeting

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jph/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/jph/sndd/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Carlotta Marianecci, Department of Drug Chemistry and Technologies, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Guest Editors

• Maria Carafa, Department of Drug Chemistry and Technologies Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
• Luisa Di Marzio, Department of Drug Science, “G. d'Annunzio” University of Chieti, Chieti, Italy
• Shyam S. Bansal, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35233, USA