Editorial: Advances in self-assembled nanocarriers for drug delivery

Abstract

Self-assembled nanocarriers are attracting increasing attention from drug delivery scientists due to their ability to provide higher efficacy with fewer side effects. Creating such a system requires carefully selecting atoms or molecules that can be assembled spontaneously by hydrogen bonding, electrostatic, hydrophobic, and van der Waal interactions to form a stable, well-defined structure with the desired physicochemical and biological properties. Self-assembled nanocarriers comprise a wide range of systems, including surfactant-based nanoparticles such as micelles, liposomes, niosomes, polymeric nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, and metal nanoclusters (Figure 1). Biomedical applications of these systems include drug, gene, and vaccine delivery, as well as tissue engineering. Combined with advanced materials science and the latest technologies, such systems could provide promising solutions to many unmet clinical needs. The Research Topic Advances in Self-Assembled Nanocarriers for Drug Delivery includes four articles in total: two reviews and two original research papers. The review by Paliwal et al. discusses the current state of, and new trends in, selfassembled nanocarriers (Paliwal et al.). They highlight some of the innovations in these nanocarriers and their applications, such as in prolonging drug action, improving bioavailability, avoiding drug resistance, and enhancing cellular uptake. In addition to being interesting to read, this review also provides the most up-to-date status of the self-assembled nanocarriers in the preclinical, clinical, and market phases. Despite the availability of small-molecule antiviral treatments, there was a clear unmet clinical need for them during the COVID pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Nanoviricide’s Biopolymer (NV-CoV-2) with covalently attached polyethylene glycol and alkyl pendants is a platform technology developed by NanoViricides, Inc. NV-CoV-2 are uniquemicelles with up to 1,200 chemically attached ligands on their surface that can bind and inactivate viruses. A mini-review published in this Research Topic by Chakraborty OPEN ACCESS