Journal of drug targeting2026ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Khan Ms, Abourehab Mas, Gupta G, Goh Kw, Sahebkar A, Kesharwani P
Breast cancer progression is driven by molecular heterogeneity, drug resistance (DR), and interactions within the tumour microenvironment (TME), creating an urgent need for therapies that can selectively suppress disease-associated genes. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) can silence targets involved in tumour growth…
Read the article →International journal of nanomedicine2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Thalij Km, You Hw, Habeeb M, Ratchagar Jv, Khot Vs, Gorde Pl
Hepatocellular carcinoma is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and a leading cause of cancer related mortality. Risk factors include chronic hepatitis B/C, obesity, alcohol abuse, diabetes and metabolic disorders. In advanced stages, normal treatments such as surgery, transplantation and chemotherapy are not as…
Read the article →BioDrugs2026ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
U Iqbal, Rw Hwang, Wj Costain
A review of blood–brain barrier transport mechanisms and emerging lipid nanoparticle strategies for carrying nucleic acid and other complex therapies into the central nervous system.
Read the article →Small2025ReviewNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
S Sarmah, S Baidya, M De
This review surveys lipid nanoparticle composition, ionisable lipid synthesis and strategies to target delivery of fragile RNA therapeutics while addressing tissue selectivity and immune activation.
Read the article →Molecular Therapy Methods & Clinical Development2025ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ca Brimacombe, Ja Kulkarni, Mhy Cheng, K An, D Witzigmann, Pr Cullis
A review of the physical principles and development history behind siRNA lipid nanoparticles for liver gene silencing and mRNA lipid nanoparticles for protein expression.
Read the article →2022ReviewDrug Delivery
Lei W, Yang C, Wu Y, Ru G, He X, Tong X, Wang S.
Conventional chemotherapy suffers from poor targeting and severe side effects, while synthetic nanocarriers are often cleared by the immune system and lack precise tumour targeting. Cell membrane-coated nanocarriers (CMCNs) offer a biomimetic strategy to improve biocompatibility, immune evasion, circulation time, and…
Read the article →2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Maeki M, Uno S, Niwa A, Okada Y, Tokeshi M
RNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are clinically validated for siRNA and mRNA delivery, but their therapeutic performance depends critically on reproducible control of size, size distribution, zeta potential, and RNA encapsulation efficiency. Microfluidic devices offer precise mixing, rapid ethanol dilution, high…
Read the article →Chemical Society Reviews* (as indicated by review format; exact volume/pages and DOI not included in the supplied file)2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Yingshu Guo, Xiuping Cao, Xiaofei Zheng, Sk Jahir Abbas, Juan Li, Weihong Tan
Cancer treatment still relies heavily on chemotherapy, which causes severe damage to normal cells and systemic side effects. Safer, more selective drug delivery strategies are needed. Nanocarriers based on nucleic acids (NCNAs) are attractive because nucleic acids offer biocompatibility, low toxicity, programmable…
Read the article →Nature Reviews Drug Discovery2021ReviewDrug Delivery
Michael J. Mitchell, Margaret M. Billingsley, Rebecca M. Haley, Marissa E. Wechsler, Nicholas A. Peppas, Robert Langer
Nanoparticle (NP) research has generated promising preclinical results, but clinical translation remains limited. A major barrier is the mismatch between one-size-fits-all NP designs and the heterogeneous biological barriers across patients and diseases. Precision medicine offers patient stratification, but precision…
Read the article →Trends in Biotechnology* (as indicated in the article’s Key Figure footer)2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Qurrat Ul Ain, Estefania V.R. Campos, Ariel Huynh, Dominik Witzigmann, Sarah Hedtrich
Gene therapies are powerful tools to prevent, treat, and cure human diseases, but their application to skin diseases has received little attention despite the easy accessibility of skin and urgent medical need. The main obstacle is the unique barrier properties of human skin, which severely limit absorption of…
Read the article →ACS Nano2021ReviewDrug Delivery
Paula M. Cevaal, Abdalla Ali, Ewa Czuba-Wojnilowicz, Jori Symons, Sharon R. Lewin, Christina Cortez-Jugo, Frank Caruso
T cells are attractive targets for immunotherapy, cancer, HIV, autoimmunity, and inflammation, but nanoparticle delivery to T cells remains a major technological challenge due to their nonphagocytic nature and multiple physiological barriers. There is a need for rational design principles for in vivo T cell-targeting…
Read the article →Journal of Materials Chemistry B2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Rih-Yang Huang, Zhuo-Hao Liu, Wei-Han Weng, Chien-Wen Chang
Gene therapy requires safe, precise, efficient, and cost-effective delivery. Viral vectors are efficient but face manufacturing, cost, and safety challenges; non-viral vectors are safer and more scalable but often have low delivery efficiency. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have emerged as a promising strategy to…
Read the article →Advanced Materials2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Arun R. K. Kumar, Yufeng Shou, Brian Chan, Krishna L., Andy Tay
This review examines how viral vectors, electroporation, microfluidic systems, nanoparticles and high-aspect-ratio nanostructures can improve the efficiency, viability and scalability of transfecting primary immune cells for applications such as CAR-T, CAR-NK and gene editing. It highlights the trade-offs between…
Read the article →Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Chen L, Hong W, Ren W, Xu T, Qian Z, He Z.
Synthetic nanoparticles face physiological barriers, RES clearance, and unintended biological interactions despite PEGylation and ligand grafting. Biological vectors—cell membranes, extracellular vesicles (EVs), and viruses—offer biocompatibility, biodegradability, immune evasion, and natural targeting. This review…
Read the article →Nature Reviews Materials2021ReviewDrug Delivery
Mandana T. Manzari, Yosi Shamay, Hiroto Kiguchi, Neal Rosen, Maurizio Scaltriti, And Daniel A. Heller
Precision medicine has transformed cancer therapy by enabling molecular profiling and optimised drug design, but clinical translation of many precision therapeutics is hindered by pharmacological limitations, including toxicities and drug resistance. Drug delivery materials can modulate a drug’s pharmacokinetics…
Read the article →Nature Communications2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Han X, Zhang H, Butowska K, Swingle Kl, Alameh M-G, Weissman D, Mitchell Mj
RNA therapeutics—ASOs, siRNAs, miRNAs, mRNAs, and CRISPR-Cas9 sgRNAs—are limited by nuclease degradation, large size, and negative charge. Ionisable lipids are the key LNP component that condenses RNA, enables endosomal escape, and reduces toxicity. Since 2008, many ionisable lipids have been created, but the field…
Read the article →Bioengineering & Translational Medicine2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Schlich M, Palomba R, Costabile G, Mizrahy S, Pannuzzo M, Peer D, Decuzzi P
Endosomal escape remains the major intracellular barrier for RNA therapeutics. Only a small fraction of RNA delivered by ionisable lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) reaches the cytosol, where siRNA, miRNA, mRNA, and CRISPR components must act. A deeper mechanistic understanding is needed to design next-generation LNPs with…
Read the article →ACS Nano.2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Rumiana Tenchov, Robert E. Bird, Allison E. Curtze, Qiongqiong Angela Zhou
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have become key delivery vehicles across pharmaceuticals, with renewed prominence as the delivery platform for COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. The field lacks a broad, quantitative landscape of LNP research across liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, cationic…
Read the article →APL Bioengineering2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Matthew R. Aronson, Scott H. Medina, Michael J. Mitchell
Most clinically approved cancer therapies are potent and toxic small molecules limited by severe off-target toxicities and poor tumour-specific localisation. Liposomal encapsulation reduces toxicity, but reliance on passive targeting via the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect leaves unresolved issues…
Read the article →Molecules2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Wan, Z.; Zheng, R.; Moharil, P.; Liu, Y.; Chen, J.; Sun, R.; Song, X.; Ao, Q
Cancer immunotherapy can produce durable clinical responses, but systemic delivery of immunostimulatory agents is limited by short half-lives, off-target toxicities (e.g., cytokine release syndrome), low response rates (10–30%), and poor efficacy in solid tumours. Polymeric micelles offer a biocompatible, modifiable…
Read the article →Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Chang D, Ma Y, Xu X, Xie J, Ju S
Polymeric nanoparticles are widely used for cancer theranostics because of their biocompatibility, biodegradability, and structural versatility, but conventional delivery still faces poor target specificity, uncontrolled release, and systemic toxicity. Stimuli-responsive polymeric nanoplatforms are proposed to…
Read the article →International Immunopharmacology2020ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Hashemi V, Farhadi S, Ghasemi Chaleshtari M, Et Al.
Dendritic cell (DC)-based cancer immunotherapy has shown impressive outcomes, including the first FDA-approved anti-cancer vaccine, but clinical application faces challenges such as limited durable responses, antigen selection issues, and immunosuppressive tumour microenvironments. Nanoparticles (NPs) are promising…
Read the article →Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences2020ReviewDrug Delivery
Yao Y, Zhou Y, Liu L, Xu Y, Chen Q, Wang Y, Wu S, Deng Y, Zhang J, Shao A.
Conventional chemotherapy and targeted therapy are limited by systemic toxicity, poor tumour targeting, and multidrug resistance (MDR). Nanoparticle-based drug delivery offers improved pharmacokinetics, biocompatibility, enhanced permeability and retention (EPR), precise targeting, and potential to overcome…
Read the article →2020ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Zeb A, Rana I, Choi H-I, Et Al.
Biopharmaceuticals have become clinically and commercially important due to their specificity, potency, targeting ability, and reduced side effects, but their macromolecular structure and intrinsic instability make formulation and administration challenging; parenteral delivery remains the only viable option in most…
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