Polymer Nanocontainers for Drug Delivery

Vesicle-templated nanocontainers prepared from ABA triblock copolymers possess great potential for applications in areas such as drug delivery or pharmacology. For example, PMOXA-PDMS-PMOXA copolymers self-aggregate in water to form vesicles in a size range from 50 nm up to 100 μm. Intravesicular crosslinking of polymerizable end groups transforms the vesicles into solid-like nanocontainers. The permeability of these nanocontainers can be controlled either by attachment of stimuli-responsive groups or by reconstitution of membrane proteins within the container shells. These functionalizations can be used to prepare responsive load-and-release systems and biomimetic hybrid materials such as responsive nanoreactors or DNA-loaded nanoparticles with outstanding properties. Potential applications such as enzyme encapsulation and gene transfection will be discussed and illustrated using model systems.