Anticancer Polymeric Nanomedicines

Polymers play important roles in the design of delivery nanocarriers for cancer therapies. Polymeric nanocarriers with anticancer drugs conjugated or encapsulated, also known as polymeric nanomedicines, form a variety of different architectures including polymer‐drug conjugates, micelles, nanospheres, nanogels, vesicles, and dendrimers. This review focuses on the current state of the preclinical and clinical investigations of polymer‐drug conjugates and polymeric micelles. Recent progress achieved in some promising fields, such as site‐specific protein conjugation, pH‐sensitive polymer‐drug conjugates, polymer nanoparticles for targeted cancer therapy, stimuli‐responsive polymeric micelles, polymeric vesicles, and dendrimer‐based anticancer nanomedicines, will be highlighted.

Keywords:

• nanomedicine
• polymer‐drug conjugate
• polymeric micelle
• polymeric nanoparticle
• drug delivery
• anticancer

Acknowledgement

This work is supported by a start‐up grant from the University of Illinois, by a seed grant from the Siteman Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (SCCNE, Washington University)‐Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST, University of Illinois), and by a Prostate Cancer Foundation Competitive Award. RT acknowledges the support of a student fellowship from SCCNE‐CNST.