Light: A Magical Tool for Controlled Drug Delivery

Light is a particularly appealing tool for on‐demand drug delivery due to its noninvasive nature, ease of application, and exquisite temporal and spatial control. Great progress is achieved in the development of novel light‐driven drug delivery strategies with both breadth and depth. Light‐controlle...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAdvanced functional materials Vol. 30; no. 49
Main Authors Tao, Yu, Chan, Hon Fai, Shi, Bingyang, Li, Mingqiang, Leong, Kam W.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.12.2020
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Summary:Light is a particularly appealing tool for on‐demand drug delivery due to its noninvasive nature, ease of application, and exquisite temporal and spatial control. Great progress is achieved in the development of novel light‐driven drug delivery strategies with both breadth and depth. Light‐controlled drug delivery platforms can be generally categorized into three groups: photochemical, photothermal, and photoisomerization‐mediated therapies. Various advanced materials, such as metal nanoparticles, metal sulfides and oxides, metal–organic frameworks, carbon nanomaterials, upconversion nanoparticles, semiconductor nanoparticles, stimuli‐responsive micelles, polymer‐ and liposome‐based nanoparticles are applied for light‐stimulated drug delivery. In view of the increasing interest in on‐demand targeted drug delivery, the development of light‐responsive systems with a focus on recent advances, key limitations, and future directions is reviewed. Light regulation of drug delivery allows precise spatial resolution and temporal control over the release of therapeutic compounds. Triggered by photochemical, photothermal or photoisomerization‐mediated energy, light‐controlled drug delivery platforms have impacted applications ranging from chemotherapy to gene editing and to stem cell differentiation. In this review, recent advances, key limitations, and future directions of light‐responsive delivery systems are highlighted.
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ISSN:1616-301X
1616-3028
DOI:10.1002/adfm.202005029