Nanocrystals for Improving the Biopharmaceutical Performance of Hydrophobic Drugs

SEREMETA, KP; BEDOGNI, GR; OKULIK, NB; SALOMON, CJ

The ADME Encyclopedia

Springer

Año: 2021; p. 1 - 14

Nanocrystals are formed by 100% of pure drug (carrier-free particles) and often stabilized with a polymer or surfactant to avoid or minimize the agglomeration or aggregation phenomena. The term nanometer indicates a scale order of 10−9 m in spatial dimension, which is above the typical dimensions of the atomic diameter by only one order of magnitude (10−10 m). Therefore, for a material to be considered as nanomaterials, at least one of their dimensions must range between 1 and 1000 nm. The latest advances focused on the manipulation and control of materials in the nanoscale range have opened up new horizons in several fields of science, including medicine. To understand the possibilities offered by this novel technology, it is crucial to realize that nanostructures present sizes similar to large biological macromolecules such as enzymes and receptors, being much smaller than human cells (which are 10?20 μm in diameter) and than many of their organelles.