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Macromolecular Drug Delivery: Basic Principles and Therapeutic Applications

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Abstract

Macromolecular drugs hold great promise as novel therapeutics of several major disorders, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. However, their use is limited by lack of efficient, safe, and specific delivery strategies. Successful development of such strategies requires interdisciplinary collaborations involving researchers with expertise on e.g., polymer chemistry, cell biology, nano technology, systems biology, advanced imaging methods, and clinical medicine. This poses obvious challenges to the scientific community, but also provides opportunities for the unexpected at the interface between different disciplines. This review summarizes recent studies of macromolecular delivery that should be of interest to researchers involved in macromolecular drug synthesis as well as in vitro and in vivo drug delivery studies.

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Acknowledgments

We apologize to all those authors whose important work could not be cited in this short overview. This work was funded by The Swedish Research Council, The Swedish Cancer Fund, The Lund University Hospital, and the Medical Faculty, Lund University (ALF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Sciences, Section of Oncology, Lund University, Barngatan 2:1, SE-221 85, Lund, Sweden

    Mattias Belting & Anders Wittrup

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  1. Mattias Belting
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  2. Anders Wittrup
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Correspondence to Mattias Belting.

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Belting, M., Wittrup, A. Macromolecular Drug Delivery: Basic Principles and Therapeutic Applications. Mol Biotechnol 43, 89–94 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12033-009-9185-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12033-009-9185-5

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