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Abstract
Polymeric micelles (PMs) have demonstrated significant impact as potential cargo carriers, primarily due to their exceptional physicochemical features. One of the major concerns in the field of controlled/targeted drug delivery is with hydrophobic drugs. In this context, PMs have certain advantages, in particular the presence of a hydrophobic core that interacts with the cargo and delivers in the desired site of action. Additionally, because of the stimuli-responsive nature of PMs, they can react to diverse intracellular and extracellular biological cues, such as pH, altered redox potentials, and heightened enzyme activity. Owing to “smart” behavior, the PMs become promising candidates for the targeted delivery of anticancer drugs and are used as imaging agents, thereby serving a range of therapeutic and diagnostic functions. The establishment and validation of robust methodologies for characterizing micelles represent the foundational steps pivotal to their advancement and eventual clinical success. In order to ensure substantial drug encapsulation followed by release, the design of PMs took a pivotal role. It is essential to design and develop the PMs in such a way so that they can interact with the cargo, enhance the payload and release in a sustained/burst manner (depending on the requirement on the desired site). Therefore, the impact of the synthesis processes, the different techniques to characterize the PMs and their potential applications in the field of biomedical science have been discussed in detail.
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Disclosure statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.