Current pharmaceutical and clinical approaches to the treatment of disease suffer from the inherent limitations in the specialization of drugs introduced to physiological systems. The interface of clinical and material sciences has allowed for a broad spectrum of creative approaches with the potential to alleviate these shortcomings. However, the synergy of these disciplines also presents problems in which nascent technology lacks the necessary evaluation within its intended clinical environment. Given the growing potential for materials science to address a number of unanswered therapeutic needs, it remains even more pressing to validate emerging drug delivery technologies in actual clinical environments. This book addresses the core fundamentals of drug delivery using material science and engineering principles, and then applies this knowledge using prominent examples from both the scientific literature and clinical practice |